How do I change a watch-only wallet to a standard wallet.

[rg500]

Hi,

Sorry, I am a newbie in both English and Bitcoin, but I really need your help, hopefully you can understand my question.
I installed Electrum on both Android cell phone and Android Tablet, but for some reason, the one installed on tablet is a watch-only wallet (I guess), can you let me know that how could I change it to a standard wallet as the one on cell phone?
(the reason why I guess the one on tablet is a watch-only wallet, because when I open it and click on the name of wallet (top-center), supposedly, it should show me the master key and a show seed button, but on my table it only show me the content of settings. in other word, I cannot find my seeds.
I've tried reinstall it, clean cache, re-install, but the problem persists.

Can someone let me know how to solve this problem?

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[mocacinno]

What actually happens when you create a new wallet is:

• a random seed phrase is generated and shown to you
• using this seed phrase, electrum creates an xprv (master private key)
• from this master private key, individual private keys get derived
• private key can be used to generate a public key, the hash of the public key is your address

Given this knowledge, you immediately see how you can "restore" a wallet, either:

• create a second wallet (potentially on a second device), using the same seed
• create a second wallet (potentially on a second device), using the same xprv
• export all private keys from addresses that were funded and import them into the second wallet (however, using this method, you'll miss all NEW private keys generated by the first wallet, hence your wallet will become incomplete as soon as you stop exporting new private keys from your original wallet

* You can find the seed on electrum (i can only check the desktop version, i have no idear if it's the same in the electrum version) by going to wallet => seed

* You can get the xprv by going to the console and entering "getmasterprivate()" (without quotes)

* you can export the individual derived private keys by going to "wallet => private keys => export"

Xprv, seed and individual private keys are PRIVATE. Do not share them with anybody, under any circumstance...

My best guess as to what might have happened is that, when creating your second wallet, you didn't use the seed, xprv or derived private keys but instead you used the addresses or xpub (master PUBLIC key), as such you created a watch only wallet (which is useless for spending, like the name already says, it's a WATCH ONLY wallet )

[nc50lc]

Can someone let me know how to solve this problem?

On your Android Phone (if you already have the SEED, skip this):

• 1. Click your wallet's name on top.
• 2. Click "Show seed" on the bottom, then enter your PIN.
• 3. Copy your SEED (12-words below the xpub), keep a written physical backup somewhere safe

On your Tablet.

• 1. Click menu (or Triple dot on the upper-right corner), select "Wallets"
• 2. Click "New" on the bottom, enter a wallet name.
• 3. Select standard wallet, then "I already have a seed"
• 4. Enter the 12-word seed, and finish the wallet creation.
• 5. You can also delete the watch-only wallet by opening it, click the wallet name above then click "delete"

[rg500]

Hi mocacinno/nc50lc

I really appreciate your help.
Sorry, I did not describe my problem correctly. I mean I did the same steps as nc50lc said. get the seeds from cell phone, and create a new wallet on tablet and then enter the seeds that from cell phone.  But the new wallet (with the same seeds as cell phone) on table is stall a watch-only wallet. I've already tried many time, remove it/re-install it but no any luck...help me.

[mocacinno]

Hi mocacinno/nc50lc

I really appreciate your help.
Sorry, I did not describe my problem correctly. I mean I did the same steps as nc50lc said. get the seeds from cell phone, and create a new wallet on tablet and then enter the seeds that from cell phone.  But the new wallet (with the same seeds as cell phone) on table is stall a watch-only wallet. I've already tried many time, remove it/re-install it but no any luck...help me.

strange.... My best guess would be that you now have two wallets on your tablet: one watch-only and a second "normal" wallet?
This, however, is a longshot... It's the most plausible explanation i can come up with right away.

To be honest, i only use electrum from my desktop, i don't have electrum for android installed. But the desktop version allows you to create as many wallets as you want, if the mobile version is the same (and allows multiple wallets), it might just have 2 wallets, and you just opened the watch-only one.

Do you have a clean device to retry the proces? Personally, if it was on my own device, i'd probably remove all wallets from my tablet and restart the process, but since i don't know your setup, i'm not sure if this would be a good  idear (we don't want to end up removing a used wallet from wich you haven't written down the recovery seed)

[rg500]

 
I cannot believe it, it's working now! ya!
Thank you nc50lc & mocacinno, thanks for your help!

[Pmalek]

It might be good if you could describe what you did to make it work so in case other users who have the same issues can see what they need to do to correct the problem. Was it like mocacinno pointed out, that you created two wallets, one watch-only and a second standard one or what happened?

[Lucius]

To be honest, i only use electrum from my desktop, i don't have electrum for android installed. But the desktop version allows you to create as many wallets as you want, if the mobile version is the same (and allows multiple wallets), it might just have 2 wallets, and you just opened the watch-only one.

The mobile version of Electrum (Android) is completely identical in terms of multiple wallets, and in this case, it is very likely that the OP made more than one wallet. Since he is a complete beginner, it is very easy to get confused about all this.

Although you explained the differences between the standard and watch-only wallet, OP should read Electrum FAQ to better understand how Electrum actually works, of course in order to avoid such and similar situations in the future.

Electrum FAQ

[nc50lc]

I cannot believe it, it's working now! ya!
Thank you nc50lc & mocacinno, thanks for your help!

You probably just opened the watch-only wallet before since you can create multiple wallets with Electrum.
If you found more than one wallet in the "Menu->Wallets", then it must be true.
Either delete the watch only wallet like I said above or remember the name of the standard wallet.

Please consider locking this topic using the "Lock" button below (lower-left) if you think that the issue was solved