How to recover a wallet with a passphrase on Electrum?

[Ayanamirs]

There's no place to insert the password.

[TryNinja]

If you are restoring a wallet with the seed, there is no need to insert a password.
If you are opening a wallet file that has a password, Electrum will ask for it.

[Ayanamirs]

If you are restoring a wallet with the seed, there is no need to insert a password.
If you are opening a wallet file that has a password, Electrum will ask for it.

No, no, no.

The seed has "BIP38" Encryption enable.

I'm just testing the recovery using Electrum, working fine with another wallet.

[HCP]

No, no, no.
The seed has "BIP38" Encryption enable.

There is no such thing as "BIP38" encryption for seeds... There is "BIP38 Encryption" for private keys

So, do you have a "BIP38" encrypted private key (should start "6P")... or do you simply have a "BIP39 Passphrase" (what Trezor/Ledger refer to as "25th word")

If it is the "BIP39 Passphrase", then to restore it... you click "Options" on the seed entry, and then tick BOTH "BIP39 seed" AND "Extend this seed with custom words":


After you enter the seed and click "Next", Electrum will prompt you to enter the "extra words" which is the same thing as a "BIP39 Passphrase":



Note that this is NOT an encryption as such, your seed remains the same and the words are not obfuscated... it is simply extending the seed with a custom passphrase... more info on BIP39 passphrases and use-cases here: https://blog.trezor.io/hide-your-trezor-wallets-with-multiple-passphrases-f2e0834026eb

[Ayanamirs]

No, no, no.
The seed has "BIP38" Encryption enable.

There is no such thing as "BIP38" encryption for seeds... There is "BIP38 Encryption" for private keys

So, do you have a "BIP38" encrypted private key (should start "6P")... or do you simply have a "BIP39 Passphrase" (what Trezor/Ledger refer to as "25th word")

If it is the "BIP39 Passphrase", then to restore it... you click "Options" on the seed entry, and then tick BOTH "BIP39 seed" AND "Extend this seed with custom words":


After you enter the seed and click "Next", Electrum will prompt you to enter the "extra words" which is the same thing as a "BIP39 Passphrase":



Note that this is NOT an encryption as such, your seed remains the same and the words are not obfuscated... it is simply extending the seed with a custom passphrase... more info on BIP39 passphrases and use-cases here: https://blog.trezor.io/hide-your-trezor-wallets-with-multiple-passphrases-f2e0834026eb

Thx

Recovery completed.

[hd67xlch]

If you are restoring a wallet with the seed, there is no need to insert a password.
If you are opening a wallet file that has a password, Electrum will ask for it.

I could use some help, I had a old electrum 2.8 wallet and installed the new upgrade off electrum. Then today I moved some btc to electrum and it showed up fine. I have my seed and password written down but the password doesnt work, so I tried recovering the wallet via the seed. I had no luck, now Ive created a new wallet and my btc are not there its showing a 0 balance even on the old walltet. Everytime I tried to recover the wallet it never asked me to do that it just keeps creating new wallets.

Thanks

[HCP]

I could use some help, I had a old electrum 2.8 wallet and installed the new upgrade off electrum. Then today I moved some btc to electrum and it showed up fine. I have my seed and password written down but the password doesnt work, so I tried recovering the wallet via the seed. I had no luck, now Ive created a new wallet and my btc are not there its showing a 0 balance even on the old walltet. Everytime I tried to recover the wallet it never asked me to do that it just keeps creating new wallets.

I assume the password was the wallet file password... and NOT a BIP39 passphrase (ie. extended seed with custom words).

If this is the case... how exactly are you trying to recover the wallet?

The menu options to use are: File -> New\Restore -> Standard -> I already have a seed

You should be able to then put in your Electrum seed, click next and it will regenerate the wallet.

Regardless of the "balance" showing, the important thing to check is that the addresses that have been regenerated are the same as your original wallet. Do you have a record anywhere of addresses that you used? (ie. a transaction history from another wallet/service that shows the address in your Electrum wallet that you sent coins to).

The reason the balance isn't as important, is that there may be syncing issues preventing the transaction history/balance from displaying... but as long as the addresses being generated are the same, then you should still be able to get access to your coins.

[hd67xlch]

I could use some help, I had a old electrum 2.8 wallet and installed the new upgrade off electrum. Then today I moved some btc to electrum and it showed up fine. I have my seed and password written down but the password doesnt work, so I tried recovering the wallet via the seed. I had no luck, now Ive created a new wallet and my btc are not there its showing a 0 balance even on the old walltet. Everytime I tried to recover the wallet it never asked me to do that it just keeps creating new wallets.

I assume the password was the wallet file password... and NOT a BIP39 passphrase (ie. extended seed with custom words).

If this is the case... how exactly are you trying to recover the wallet?

The menu options to use are: File -> New\Restore -> Standard -> I already have a seed

You should be able to then put in your Electrum seed, click next and it will regenerate the wallet.

Regardless of the "balance" showing, the important thing to check is that the addresses that have been regenerated are the same as your original wallet. Do you have a record anywhere of addresses that you used? (ie. a transaction history from another wallet/service that shows the address in your Electrum wallet that you sent coins to).

The reason the balance isn't as important, is that there may be syncing issues preventing the transaction history/balance from displaying... but as long as the addresses being generated are the same, then you should still be able to get access to your coins.

Thanks for your help, but I believe Ive deleted the wallet files by mistake. I can see the btc sitting there on blockchain, they have not been sent but the one time I sent them. I tried recovering the deleted wallet files but no luck, I guess this mean im SOL right? Its not a lot of $ just around $500, do any of these recovery services work if the wallet files are gone? thanks

[HCP]

The wallet recovery services generally require that you have at least the btcrecover "extract" (which requires you to have the wallet file) or the wallet file itself. Without either of these, there is really no way that they can do anything...

Given that you can see the BTC on a block explorer, I assume this means you know the address and that the seed you have is not restoring a wallet that contains this address?

Unfortunately, if the seed you've got is generating a wallet with different addresses and you don't have the original wallet file... your chances of recovery are practically zero.

[hd67xlch]

The wallet recovery services generally require that you have at least the btcrecover "extract" (which requires you to have the wallet file) or the wallet file itself. Without either of these, there is really no way that they can do anything...

Given that you can see the BTC on a block explorer, I assume this means you know the address and that the seed you have is not restoring a wallet that contains this address?

Unfortunately, if the seed you've got is generating a wallet with different addresses and you don't have the original wallet file... your chances of recovery are practically zero.

First thank you very much for helping me! Today I re installed electrum  using seed I had written down and left the password part unchecked, and there is my wallet with all the transactions from 2017, but its still not showing the btc that was deposited in it 3 days ago. So maybe there is some hope for me yet. The btc is still showing on blockchain with just the one transaction the move from coin base to electrum.When I made the deposit it was electrum 3.0.5, then I upgraded to the 3.1.0 version tried to restore the wallet and everything was gone, any chance the btc just hasnt caught up yet?

Last night windows updated and I unchecked show hidden files on my pc, so maybe thats let the old transactions show up, I dont know, but I do know that windows is updating again now, so maybe some more will show up? So basically Ive got my old wallet back showing all of 2017s transactions , the correct seed and the btc showing on blockchain.Is there anything I can do from here? thanks

[Abdussamad]

@hd67xlch Try the things listed here: https://bitcoinelectrum.com/frequently-asked-questions/#why-does-restoring-my-wallet-from-seed-lead-to-a-different-wallet

But first make sure the funds aren't sitting in your coinbase wallet instead (login there and check).

[HCP]

In your 3.1.0 wallet... Can you actually see the address that you sent to? If you can't see the addresses tab, you may need to use "View -> Show Addresses".

Have a look through the list and make sure you see the address. If not, it's possible the address is out past the gap limit... Or that you have sent to the wrong address somehow.

To check if it's a gap limit issue... You'll need to run a console command:

Code:

for x in range(0, 50): print wallet.create_new_address(False)