No sign of my private keys in Electrum wallet ... where do I find them? I recently downloaded an Electrum wallet (version 1.7.3) and made two Bitcoin purchases. The wallet shows the public receiving addresses (including those receiving addresses which I used to receive the coins) and the amount of coins received in these transactions. My problem is that I can't see the private addresses anywhere and don't feel confident that the coins are still in my possession (of if they ever were).

I am guessing that when (in the Classic Gui) I click on the 'Send' tab, enter the address for the intended recipient in the 'Pay to' slot, the 'Amount', 'Description' of the transaction for my own benefit, the 'Fee', and subsequently click on 'Send', the client might then perhaps disclose a private address along with an address for any change to go to. Is this correct? If not, can someone be good enough tell me how it does work?

I feel uneasy that I cannot see the private addresses anywhere. And, of course, I can't spend the coins until I have the private addresses. (I would like to commit my private keys to paper.)

In the 'Settings', there is a tab labeled 'Import/Export' and one of the options there is to 'Export' / 'Import' Private Keys. Does this mean to 'Export' the private addresses from the wallet to somewhere else (another file which one might create, perhaps), or to 'Export' them from somewhere else into the wallet? Does 'Import' the Private Keys mean to bring them into display somewhere in the wallet? I just don't understand and am afraid to try out either of these commands just in case I somehow lose my Bitcoins.

As you can see, I'm not exactly tech savvy and would really be grateful for help here from any Electrum wallet users on this forum.

Terrylei
You ask a lot of things, so I'll explain how Electrum works for you and hope it is what you need.

Electrum uses a seed (twelve words length password). Your private keys are derived from this seed every time you make a transaction.

The only thing you need to spend the coins received in your Electrum addresses is that seed. You can export the private key for one of the addresses in your wallet, but you should not do it. Keep your Electrum private keys PRIVATE.

You can also import a private key from another wallet, e.g Blockchain.info to be able to spend the coins in that address. It will be added to your wallet as a imported address, imported addresses behave kinda different to Electrum seed addresses. So keep a copy of the imported private key, just in case.

You will always be able to restore all your Electrum addresses using your seed, but not the imported keys, as they are not on your seed.