Old wallet.dat file showing Chinese characters

Hey everyone I just found an old wallet.dat that shows up as Chinese characters on Windows 11. What do I do to get my wallet back?

Are you sure you're not just opening it in Notepad? That won't work at all. The wallet.dat has binary data, not plain text, so it’ll look like garbage there.

Yeah I opened it in Notepad. I checked another old wallet on my Android and it was fine. Just worried about messing up Bitcoin Core if I put in multiple wallets at once. Aren't some of them encrypted?

You seriously need to stop messing around and follow this: 1. Copy your wallet.dat. 2. Ensure Bitcoin Core is closed. 3. Place the copied wallet in the right directory. Easy.

Like achow101 and others said, importing it into Bitcoin Core is key. Don't forget to keep your original file safe though.

You should use the "File->Restore Wallet..." option. This way, the original wallet stays untouched. You can load as many wallets as you want one by one. Just start restoring them before syncing if you're on a tight disk space.