Lost password/seed

[Haileyshappy]

Hi,

I am trying to recover an old wallet that should have a decent amount of cryptocurrency in it.  The problem is that I haven't used this account in around 10 years...I had an accident and am still recovering from a significant amount of brain damage, and have little recollection of a lot of my life, trying to remember passwords is not going to happen..... I cannot remember where exactly I put my cryptocurrency and have 4 or 5 different wallet files to different exchanges and am wondering if there is any way to check the balance on an encrypted wallet without having a password or seed?
Thank You!

Tldr: Is it possible to check balance of encrypted wallet w/o password or seed?

[DireWolfM14]

Is it possible to check balance of encrypted wallet w/o password or seed?

Simple answer: No.

However, Electrum was first released about ten years ago, and it's not an "exchange."  It's a light client wallet software only.  Do the wallet files you found have an extension such as wallet.dat?  If so, it could be a bitcoin core wallet, not an Electrum wallet.  Although, early on Electrum did include an extension to the wallet files.

[Haileyshappy]

I am sure it is an electrum file, it was upgraded to 2.8, but I cannot remember if that was where I left the cryptocurrency or if I moved it to another wallet...All of the files I have are encrypted and I don't want to try to brute force a file that has nothing in it....

[pooya87]

Is it possible to check balance of encrypted wallet w/o password or seed?

Simple answer: No.

Actually you can. It is just recently that the developers team added the option to encrypt the entire wallet file. In early versions the only thing that got encrypted was the "secrets" (seed, private keys, master private key) and the addresses and transaction history, etc. weren't so you should be able to load the wallet file in Electrum and sync it even if it is encrypted.

If you can't do that then it is either not an Electrum wallet file, or wasn't created 10 years ago or it is corrupted in which case the wallet should tell you about the corruption.

[nc50lc]

I am sure it is an electrum file, it was upgraded to 2.8, but I cannot remember if that was where I left the cryptocurrency or if I moved it to another wallet... -snip-

Even if it was upgraded by Electrum 2.8+, the wallet file will still remain unencrypted, just the private portions of the wallet file.
Unless you've changed the password and ticked "Encrypt wallet file" option.

Anyways, if it asks for a password to open the wallet, then it's fully encrypted.
In that case, even the addresses can't be checked from the wallet file.

[Haileyshappy]

Thank you for the replies! It is fully encrypted, asks for a password to Import it, The raw files starts with a Q....ends with a ==😭....maybe I should try the hypnosis thing, from what I hear it may be easier!

[nc50lc]

-snip- The raw files starts with a Q....ends with a ==😭....maybe I should try the hypnosis thing, from what I hear it may be easier!

Yes, that's the normal thing you'll see for encrypted wallet files, at least it doesn't look corrupted.

I'm not an expert in 'hypnosis' but it's worth the try since bruteforcing the wallet without a clue of the password is pointless.
I'd suggest you to look for files or physical "paper" where you might have saved your seed phrase.

[Haileyshappy]

-snip- The raw files starts with a Q....ends with a ==😭....maybe I should try the hypnosis thing, from what I hear it may be easier!

Yes, that's the normal thing you'll see for encrypted wallet files, at least it doesn't look corrupted.

I'm not an expert in 'hypnosis' but it's worth the try since bruteforcing the wallet without a clue of the password is pointless.
I'd suggest you to look for files or physical "paper" where you might have saved your seed phrase.

That is what I have been doing, I just started going through the hex editor, hoping that I wasn't as secure as I could have been!

[o_e_l_e_o]

hoping that I wasn't as secure as I could have been!

If you have an idea of what the password could be, then you could attempt to bruteforce it using a program such as btcrecover: https://btcrecover.readthedocs.io/. Or if you think the password you used might have been very simple, then you could potentially try to bruteforce it from nothing, although this is highly unlikely to be successful if you have used even a moderately complex password.

Is there a chance you reused a password for your Electrum wallets which you were also using on something else or some account at the time 10 years ago? Do you have any old passwords written down or saved in a password manager? Do you have anything at all to base a password search on?

[Haileyshappy]

Yes, I have a little bit of an idea what my passwords are, I also have a slight idea what my seeds are.  I have been using scripts from btc recover.  Thank you for the feedback, I think I'm gonna put together a brute force station out of an old dell optiplex. 
One more question, if I update my original client, could I pull them off of there?

[nc50lc]

-snip-
One more question, if I update my original client, could I pull them off of there?

The updated client will update the wallet file to be compatible with that version. But the wallet encryption should be the same.
Depending on the wallet's version, you may have to use an updated fork of BTCRecover.
Just make sure to save a backup of the untouched version of your wallet file, it's in Electrum's data directory (except for the portable version).

-snip-

That is what I have been doing, I just started going through the hex editor, hoping that I wasn't as secure as I could have been!

Unfortunately, in your case, the 'full wallet contents' is encrypted so you wont be able to find addresses to check for balance before the bruteforce attempt.