Bitcoin Forum

Hello, I am trying to restore my electrum wallet from seed but I am not familiar with any of this or the language. I need to restore because I lost my home & ability to use google authenticator to use my electrum wallet. I want to restore and move the bitcoin to another wallet.

I copied some codes, 2 sets of numbers & a "address" when a set up my electrum wallet. I was not really paying attention because I didnt think I would really need it, ??? so, I did not organize it.

I have 2 set of random numbers that I texted to myself, that I believe are the secret codes everyone is speaking of but I'm not 100% positive :-\....now I know I wouldnt do this unless they were important...but I really cant remember why I texted these numbers to myself, thats the only thing that would makes sense, they are the secret codes.
The other "address" is just that, looks like a web address....user/home/wallet/electrum...etc. Is this my "seed" and the 2 sets of numbers are my secret codes?

Thank you

On Electrum, the seed is the seed phrase which are the 12 words the wallet generated when you were creating the wallet. Do you still have access to the 12 words? Also if you extend the words with passphrase, you will need the passphrase (extended words) along to be able to have access to your keys and addresses. Or, did you have the wallet file backup? Or maybe what you called the codes are private keys, is the codes starting from K, L or 5? Or what letter/number did the code start from?

As you are talking about google authenticator, your wallet was probably 2FA.

You can recover your wallet with your seed phrase even without google authenticator code. As stated by Charles-Tim, your seed phrase should be a series of 12 words.
As you are talking about numbers, I doubt what you have is the seed phrase.

For recovering your wallet, you need to have your seed phrase (a series of 12 words) or the wallet file plus the secret key electrum gave you when generating the wallet.
The secret key includes random numbers and letters and can be in the form of QR code too.

What is the exact format of the 2 sets of random numbers? ??? How many characters long are they? Are they ONLY numbers? or does it contain letters as well? What is the first letter/number of each code? ???

Does it look like the code in this screenshot:
https://talkimg.com/images/2023/11/14/zFlOG.png

ie. the "HFZIZRDSSJ7G5WYB" code? ???

If so, that is the Google Authenticator "secret key", and you can recover your 2FA by using that secret key with any Google Authenticator compatible app (like Aegis, or Authenticator Plus etc)


NOTE: DO NOT POST THE ACTUAL CODES HERE! We just need to get an idea of what these "codes" actually are.


I suspect you have copied the location of where your wallet file is stored on the PC that is shown during Electrum 2FA wallet creation:
https://talkimg.com/images/2023/11/14/zN2nD.png

it's not very useful unless you still have access to that particular computer... and still have access to your 2FA device

I will answer your Pmed here, so others know too.

https://i.postimg.cc/kXfypVxC/seed.jpg

that the Red circle 12 words is the seed you must keep it, that is very important than your 2fa code. don't give to anybody even your wife in PM.

If you don't have it, most likely you lost your bitcoin.

You are not going to get far with just the 2FA recovery code. You can even restore your Electrum wallet without that code. You said in OP that you "lost your home", does that also mean you no longer have access to the computer where your Electrum app was installed? If you have, you need the correct wallet file  or private keys.

The worrying thing is that you claim you only have 2 set of codes with numbers. Best case scenario is those are private keys of your funded address. Worst case scenario, you just wrote down the 30-seconds 6-digit 2FA codes that keep changing and are therefore useless. I also don't like that the codes are numbers only. 

Based from your other thread, you must have meant "lost your phone" not "home", right?
(looks like somebody got a new phone but forgot to turn off auto-correct :P )

"Two set of numbers"? One must be the "secret key" if there are letters in it, as previously mentioned;
and the other one (if 6digits) must be the fist 2fa code that your got when you set-up the wallet, it's not needed since it always change after a few seconds.
If both are 6digits, you must have kept your previous 2fa codes which are useless for recovery.

Without the seed phrase, you won't be able to do anything to your 2fa Electrum wallet but to monitor its balance.
For now, wait for your new phone and do the procedures to restore your google authenticator there, then use your "secret key" if you have it to restore the 2fa device.
Steps already in the previous thread or in HCP's reply.

he doesn't need any secret key. just the seed will suffice.

You are right. OP doesn't need the secret key if he/she has the seed phrase. The seed phrase can generate two out of the three master private keys and is enough for spending the fund from the 2 of 3 multi-signature wallet.  

In that post, I considered the case OP doesn't have the seed phrase too.
I said that OP needs to have the {seed phrase} or {the wallet file plus the secret key}.
Perhaps, my wording wasn't clear enough.