Clean up Monero on Mac OSX

Question

I used monero before the GUI came out. Whenever a new version came out I created a new folder in my home directory and as far as I remember copied the wallet files into the new folder and never deleted the old folders. Then the GUI came out and I don't remember what exactly I did to get it to open my old wallet because there were some errors initially.

When I close the wallet that is currently open and try to open others, it seems it needs to download the blockchain again?

I have many monero folders and wallet files on my Mac, also in my home directory and I would like to know what actually gets used and what I can safely delete.

When I open the GUI, I can not see what version of Monero daemon it actually starts and I can't see what wallet files are open (exact folder not just the name).

GUI version: 13253c3

Embedded monero version: dd580d7

These don't tell me if I use the latest version or if I need to update.

Where do I see what daemon version the GUI actually uses and in which folder it is?

Can somebody help me to clean this up and offer some general tips how to update the GUI or how to tell the GUI which daemon version to connect to?

What folders can I delete, how do I check which wallet file the GUI actually uses right at the time? (The name when starting the GUI doesn't help because I have so many copies of that wallet by now.)

Thank you

Answer 1

As long as you have the wallet's 25-word mnemonic in a safe place, you cannot lose any funds, even if you remove all the wallet directories. Because, you can always recreate the wallet with the mnemonic. Of course, when doing that, you'd need to rescan the blockchain.

However, keep in mind that only the wallet you're sending transactions from, keeps a cache of the destination addresses. As far as I know, there's no way to sync that between CLI and GUI wallet folders (for the same address). Maybe in the future, one would be able to export and import that …

I am in a somewhat similar situation, starting using the GUI after the CLI. So, I copied the CLI wallet folder for use with the GUI. For past transactions performed with the CLI, the destination addresses are also visible via the History page of the GUI (click on Details there). However, the reverse wouldn't be true. Transaction details for transactions performed from the GUI would not be available if I were to restart using the wallet from the CLI directory. After syncing up, the balance would obviously be the same, but I wouldn't be able to see where I sent money to.

If you "branched" off the wallet directory from the CLI to the GUI (by copying it), there's generally no use in keeping the old directory. In theory, I think you would also be able to use the CLI with the wallet in the directory used by the GUI. You could verify that by making another copy, and then type show_transfers out in the CLI.