3

If I generate too many, they go red for some reason. So what is the maximum amount of addresses that a seed can make?

Improve this question

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
4

You don't need to worry about red addresses. Just remember roughly how many of those there were if you ever send money to one of them.

There is no practical limit of how many addresses Electrum can generate from a seed. To figure out, how much money you have in your wallet, Electrum needs to sum up the funds in your addresses sequence – of which I just said that it doesn't have a practical limit in the number of its elements. This causes a problem: When should Electrum stop checking for more money further down the address sequence? The solution is to introduce a gap limit g.

When Electrum sums up the money in the addresses, it has a counter c which is incremented every time an address has no recorded transactions and set to 0 every time it does. If c > g, Electrum stops.

By default, g is set to 20 since Electrum 2.0. Addresses beyond the gap limit are red. If money is sent to one of them but never to the g addresses before them, Electrum will not look for it.

The gap limit also determines how many unused addresses you're shown if you don't generate new ones.

Improve this answer
12
  • Can I change the gap limit?
    – Shamoon
    Aug 16, 2016 at 20:52
  • Sure. Just type wallet.storage.put('gap_limit',100) (or whatever value in the end) into the Electrum console.
    – UTF-8
    Aug 16, 2016 at 20:55
  • If I recover my Electrum wallet, I just need to remember that I may have money in addresses that are not listed, right?
    – Shamoon
    Aug 16, 2016 at 20:58
  • 1
    @sudo Unfortunately, I don't know whether there is a bug or some other problem which emerges when you have many addresses. For example, the server you're using might have a limit as to how many different addresses' balances you may request in a short period of time. I merely meant to state that there is no practical limit as to how many different addresses Electrum can generate from a single seed, not that there definitely are no complications when using many addresses.
    – UTF-8
    Feb 11, 2018 at 12:54
  • 1
    @sudo If you're using that many addresses, experience problems, and don't know why, you should probably inform the developers of Electrum.
    – UTF-8
    Feb 11, 2018 at 12:55

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge that you have read and understand our privacy policy and code of conduct.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.