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In most of computerdom, an app's File dropdown menu has an Import item that permits selection of a file to import into the application. This would seem to be an obvious feature to include in a Bitcoin GUI, yet when searching for how one imports the wallet.dat file, no such straightforward import option appears.

What is the technical reason for this?

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It is not so easy to "open" a wallet, because it requires rescanning the blockchain to find the outputs that are relevant. This can take a very lock time, especially if you do not have an SSD. Because the performance is so poor, it would be disappointing for a lot of users to use this hypothetical feature.

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  • I see. So is there client software geared toward those running a full node with SSD, many GB RAM and many cores? I understand this is a different kind of question from the original.
    – user5652
    Commented Mar 15, 2020 at 16:01
  • @user5652 you could run an electrum-server like electrs or electrumX and then use any electrum-protocol wallet, and configure it to use your local server. the server will need a few hundred gigabytes to index everything.
    – Janus Troelsen
    Commented Mar 15, 2020 at 16:06

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