Open Electrum Android App in READ-ONLY mode?

[thoste]

Normally I use Electrum Windows Program to send and receive BTCs.

However I would appreciate to have Electrum Wallet information on my Android 13 smartphone too.
E.g. to get information if I already received a BTC transfer.
or to copy & paste a BTC address and send it to my partner.

Ok, I could download and install the Electrum App to get access to my wallet over there.

But I don't want to open the wallet in full access mode.
Instead everything should be possible except sending  BTCs.
Therefore I need something like a read-only mode which cannot (never) be changed on in my Smartphone.

So it must by a special Electrum App compilation which never allows "write" mode even if I enter the correct wallet passwd.

Alternatively Electrum could offer a second wallet password for read-only mode.

Everything is acceptable as long as I do not have to enter my full "write" wallet password.

Is this somehow possible?
Or can this be implemented in the next version?

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[OmegaStarScream]

If you just want to see your transfers, then yes, you can use the watch-only mode. By going to create a new standard wallet -> Use a master key, and then paste or scan your Master public key QR code.

And to get your Master key from your current wallet, you go to the menu -> Wallet -> Information. You'll find it at the bottom.

[_act_]

What you are talking about is a watch only wallet, you can read about it from this link:

https://electrum.readthedocs.io/en/latest/coldstorage.html

You can set a different password. You can also go preference to set pin for protected payment which is different from the password that you will be using to access the wallet.

[Yamane_Keto]

watch-only is your option where you can view previous addresses, check that your balance has been updated and generate new addresses but you cannot sign a message or send from your wallet. go to menu > information > Copy the Master Public Key (MPK)
in online device open new wallet > standard wallet > use a master key
https://bitcoinelectrum.com/creating-a-watch-only-wallet/

[nc50lc]

Is this somehow possible?

Yes, but the steps depends on your wallet type.

If you have Standard wallet, doing what others said is the precise way to do this.
If you have a 2FA wallet, you'll have to restore a 2-of-3 Multi-Signature wallet containing all three master public keys (keystore1, 2 , 3) from your wallet information.
The order of the master keys doesn't matter in Electrum.

[_act_]

Is this somehow possible?

Yes, but the steps depends on your wallet type.

If you have Standard wallet, doing what others said is the precise way to do this.
If you have a 2FA wallet, you'll have to restore a 2-of-3 Multi-Signature wallet containing all three master public keys (keystore1, 2 , 3) from your wallet information.
The order of the master keys doesn't matter in Electrum.

He has an Electrum wallet already on desktop, he can only have 2fa on mobile phone, he can not have both Electrum wallet and 2fa on mobile phone because it is not good to have both the authenticator and the wallet together. He is good for him to just go for watch only wallet. I get what you are saying that on 2fa wallet, that he will not be able to spend but it is not what he is looking for.

[o_e_l_e_o]

He has an Electrum wallet already on desktop, he can only have 2fa on mobile phone, he can not have both Electrum wallet and 2fa on mobile phone because it is not good to have both the authenticator and the wallet together.

The instructions nc50lc has given will restore a watch only version of his 2FA wallet to his mobile, which will not contain any private keys. It is fine to have both a watch only 2FA wallet and the 2FA app on the same device, since there will still only be access to a single private key via the 2FA app, and no access to any of the private keys via the watch only wallet.

[nc50lc]

-snip-

I get what you are saying that on 2fa wallet, that he will not be able to spend but it is not what he is looking for.

Since he didn't specified the wallet type and nobody provided instructions to create a watching-only version of a 2fa wallet, I've posted it just in case.

If his wallet is 2fa, it's exactly what he's looking for.
BTW, the wallet that'll be created will be "2of3, watching only" and not "2fa"; but it can generate the same addresses from his 2fa wallet.

[dzungmobile]

Alternatively Electrum could offer a second wallet password for read-only mode.

You messed up your thinking.

Read-only mode or Watch-only wallet means you only can see your trasnaction history and balance. You create such wallet to follow up your wallet transaction, balance without needs to copy and paste your addresses to block explorers and check those details. Because if you use block explorers without Tor connection, you leak your information.

Because it is a Watch -only wallet, it can not send bitcoin. So wallet password is not important.

[_act_]

You create such wallet to follow up your wallet transaction, balance without needs to copy and paste your addresses to block explorers and check those details. Because if you use block explorers without Tor connection, you leak your information.

If you are using watch only wallet without tor, you are also leaking your information to the central server. Information like IP address and your wallet address would be leaked.

Watch only wallet on tor is good to be anonymous, but if you check the information on explorer with tor, it is also good. Watch only wallet gives convenience to track your wallet, but offers more than that. Watch only wallet can be used to make unsigned transaction and also used for broadcasting signed transaction in addition to its function.

[o_e_l_e_o]

Because it is a Watch -only wallet, it can not send bitcoin. So wallet password is not important.

Without a password, anyone who can access your device can spy on all your transactions and balances, potentially making you a target for further attacks.

If you are using watch only wallet without tor, you are also leaking your information to the central server. Information like IP address and your wallet address would be leaked.

Even with Tor, you still leak all your addresses and allow them to be linked together. The only way to be anonymous with any Electrum wallet, watch only or not, is to connect it to your own node/server.

[_act_]

Even with Tor, you still leak all your addresses and allow them to be linked together. The only way to be anonymous with any Electrum wallet, watch only or not, is to connect it to your own node/server.

You leak your wallet addresses but tor will mask the IP address in a way the central server will not know the IP address. To have a full node wallet needs over 400 gigibyte and addictional gigabytes daily, that makes people not to have full node wallets. The only way to complete privacy is to have your own electrum server or full node and connect to it instead of the central servers, but not everyone that can afford this.

With tor, you can still try as much as possible to be anonymous to some extent. You can have an offline ways to generate seed phrase, get some private keys and their addresses. Get different wallets like Electrum, Sparrow and some other open source and import the private keys of each addresses on the different wallets.

Like this:

• Electrum, private key 1
• Sparrow, private key 2
• Samourai, private key 3

Or generate seed phrase on each wallet and fund just one address. Using tor to connect to each wallet and changing the tor routing connection for each.

With tor I can still be anonymous but it is not like the more privacy that full node wallet can give with ease.

[o_e_l_e_o]

To have a full node wallet needs over 400 gigibyte and addictional gigabytes daily

You can run Electrum Personal Server using a pruned node, but I take your point regarding resource requirements. Just pointing out that simply using Tor is not sufficient to make you anonymous.

Like this:

• Electrum, private key 1
• Sparrow, private key 2
• Samourai, private key 3

True, but I would bet almost nobody does this, and it is far easier with a set up like this to accidentally mess up, connect to two different wallets via the same IP, and so on. At some point, running your own node becomes the easier option.

[Pmalek]

Read-only mode or Watch-only wallet means you only can see your trasnaction history and balance. You create such wallet to follow up your wallet transaction, balance without needs to copy and paste your addresses to block explorers and check those details.

There is another useful use case of watch-only wallets. If they contain your master public key, which is the recommended way to create them and not mess around with individual public keys, you can also generate new receiving addresses for your wallet without having to power on or access your cold wallet.

[NotATether]

Even with Tor, you still leak all your addresses and allow them to be linked together. The only way to be anonymous with any Electrum wallet, watch only or not, is to connect it to your own node/server.

You leak your wallet addresses but tor will mask the IP address in a way the central server will not know the IP address. To have a full node wallet needs over 400 gigibyte and addictional gigabytes daily, that makes people not to have full node wallets. The only way to complete privacy is to have your own electrum server or full node and connect to it instead of the central servers, but not everyone that can afford this.

But that is if you can get Electrum to connect through Tor in the first place. As far as I know, Electrum makes direct connections to the servers, which I believe are unencrypted on top of that, and also it does not have an option in the GUI to use a proxy to connect to the servers. And certainly not a SOCKS5 proxy option. (edit: thanks pooya)

With Android you can use things like Orbot to route apps' traffic through Tor, but as for the desktop wallet, I am not quite sure.

[pooya87]

But that is if you can get Electrum to connect through Tor in the first place. As far as I know, Electrum makes direct connections to the servers, which I believe are unencrypted on top of that, and also it does not have an option in the GUI to use a proxy to connect to the servers. And certainly not a SOCKS5 proxy option.

I am not as familiar with the communication protocol that Electrum uses as I like to be but as far as I know the communication with the servers are actually encrypted using SSL encryption and you also store the servers' certificate on your device found in %APPDATA% \Electrum\certs.

There is also a "Proxy" tab in the "Network" window (found under Tools menu) that allows you to enter a custom proxy to be used (SOCKS4 or 5).

[NotATether]

But that is if you can get Electrum to connect through Tor in the first place. As far as I know, Electrum makes direct connections to the servers, which I believe are unencrypted on top of that, and also it does not have an option in the GUI to use a proxy to connect to the servers. And certainly not a SOCKS5 proxy option.

I am not as familiar with the communication protocol that Electrum uses as I like to be but as far as I know the communication with the servers are actually encrypted using SSL encryption and you also store the servers' certificate on your device found in %APPDATA% \Electrum\certs.

There is also a "Proxy" tab in the "Network" window (found under Tools menu) that allows you to enter a custom proxy to be used (SOCKS4 or 5).

'

Thanks for that correction. I have just went and enabled Tor routing, which just happens to be the top option when you click on Network (It's called: "Use Tor proxy at 9050"), and I was disconnected for a few seconds but successfully re-established a connection via Tor. I don't know why I didn't see this earlier, but I had always thought that the Network page was just a list of statistics and servers to select.

[pooya87]

I don't know why I didn't see this earlier, but I had always thought that the Network page was just a list of statistics and servers to select.

It's most probably because like me you are an old user of Electrum who remembers how it used to be
Over the years with each release, the Electrum team keep changing and improving everything including the Network related stuff. Specially when people request new features or find bugs. Some of these changes are somewhat hidden so they are easy to overlook.
Here is how simple the Network window used to look in version 2 with Network also having an option for non-encrypted communication over TCP (I think it was without SSL encryption)

[thoste]

If you just want to see your transfers, then yes, you can use the watch-only mode. By going to create a new standard wallet -> Use a master key, and then paste or scan your Master public key QR code.

And to get your Master key from your current wallet, you go to the menu -> Wallet -> Information. You'll find it at the bottom.

This is exactly what I do NOT want. This procedure creates/replicates a full wallet.

First of all: I already have a a Standard Wallet on Windows. And I don't care (for now) about Tor connection.

My primary one-and-only focus is to create a watch-only view on Android 13 of an existing wallet from Windows.

After creating a standard wallet on Android and scanning the QR-Code from Windows Screen the wallet is created.
And it is writeable :-((((
I can send BTCs.

So again: How can I create a watch-only wallet view from an existing wallet on other device (Windows)?

[un_rank]

This is exactly what I do NOT want. This procedure creates/replicates a full wallet.

No it does not. It replicates a watch only wallet that allows you view and monitor transactions but you cannot sign a transaction with it cause it does not contain the private keys.
A full wallet has to have the private keys and allow transaction signing.

After creating a standard wallet on Android and scanning the QR-Code from Windows Screen the wallet is created.
And it is writeable :-((((
I can send BTCs.

Not if you scan the master public key.

So again: How can I create a watch-only wallet view from an existing wallet on other device (Windows)?

Follow the instructions in the first reply again but with more careful attention to it.

- Jay -