Dogecoin Core file system

Contents

Data directory location
Data directory layout
GUI settings
Legacy subdirectories and files
Notes

Data directory location

The data directory is the default location where the Dogecoin Core files are stored.

The default data directory paths for supported platforms are:

Platform	Data directory path
Linux	`$HOME/.dogecoin/`
macOS	`$HOME/Library/Application Support/Dogecoin/`
Windows	`%APPDATA%\Dogecoin\` ^[1]

A custom data directory path can be specified with the -datadir option.
All content of the data directory, except for the dogecoin.conf file, is chain-specific. This means the actual data directory paths for non-mainnet cases differ:

Chain	Data directory path
(default)	path_to_datadir`/`
`-testnet`	path_to_datadir`/testnet3/`
`-regtest`	path_to_datadir`/regtest/`

Data directory layout

Subdirectory	File(s)	Description
`blocks/`		Blocks directory
`blocks/index/`	LevelDB database	Block and transaction indices
`blocks/`	`blkNNNNN.dat`	Actual blocks (in network format, dumped in raw on disk, 128 MiB per file)
`blocks/`	`revNNNNN.dat`	Block undo data (custom format)
`chainstate/`	LevelDB database	Blockchain state, a.k.a UTXO database
`./`	`anchors.dat`	Anchor IP address database, created on shutdown and deleted at startup. Anchors are last known outgoing block-relay-only peers that are tried to re-connect to on startup
`./`	`banlist.dat`	Stores the IPs/subnets of banned nodes
`./`	`dogecoin.conf`	User-defined configuration settings for `dogecoind` or `dogecoin-qt`; can be specified by `-conf` option
`./`	`dogecoind.pid`	Stores the process ID (PID) of `dogecoind` or `dogecoin-qt` while running; can be specified by `-pid` option
`./`	`debug.log`	Contains debug information and general logging generated by `dogecoind` or `dogecoin-qt`
`./`	`fee_estimates.dat`	Stores statistics used to estimate smart transaction fees and priorities required for confirmation
`./`	`mempool.dat`	Dump of the mempool's transactions
`./`	`onion_private_key`	Cached Tor onion service private key for `-listenonion` option
`./`	`peers.dat`	Peer IP address database
`./`	`.cookie`	Session RPC authentication cookie; if used, created at start and deleted on shutdown; can be specified by `-rpccookiefile` option
`./`	`.lock`	Data directory lock file
`./`	`db.log`	BDB error file
`./`	`wallet.dat`	Personal wallet (a BDB database) with keys and transactions
`./`	`.walletlock`	BDB wallet lock file

GUI settings

dogecoin-qt uses the QSettings class; this implies platform-specific locations where application settings are stored.

Legacy subdirectories and files

These subdirectories and files are no longer used by Dogecoin Core:

Path	Description
`blktree/`	Blockchain index; replaced by `blocks/index/` in 1.10.0
`coins/`	Unspent transaction output database; replaced by `chainstate/` in 1.10.0
`blkindex.dat`	Blockchain index BDB database; replaced by {`chainstate/`, `blocks/index/`, `blocks/revNNNNN.dat`} in 1.10.0
`blk000?.dat`	Block data (custom format, 2 GiB per file); replaced by `blocks/blkNNNNN.dat` in 1.10.0
`addr.dat`	Peer IP address BDB database; replaced by `peers.dat` in 1.7.0

Notes

1. The / (slash, U+002F) is used as the platform-independent path component separator in this document.