Recover old 2018 armory wallet with just root key

[jayman5]

Hi i found the root key for my old bitcoin armory wallet from 2018. I don`t have the address or the seed phrase. Can i still recover this?

Is a root key the same as seed phrase as the way it was copied looks similar but its just made up of 18 blocks of 4 random letters & numbers rather than the usual 12 word seed

[LoyceV]

I've never tried it, but it should work:

Armory Root Key: 18 four letter "words".
Example (from bitkee.com): eoaj gghu ruaf ghwe jnrh ftuu hweu aeun agkg tudt waja gunn oawg jkwh dhei hjdn itar naoj
Use Armory.

[DireWolfM14]

Hi i found the root key for my old bitcoin armory wallet from 2018. I don`t have the address or the seed phrase. Can i still recover this?

Is a root key the same as seed phrase as the way it was copied looks similar but its just made up of 18 blocks of 4 random letters & numbers rather than the usual 12 word seed

The root key restores an Armory wallet just like a Bip39 seed phrase would most other wallets.  You are correct, it's not a seed phrase and it isn't compatible with any other wallet.  You'll need to use BitcoinArmory wallet to restore your root key, then extract the private keys from each of the addresses that you want to export to another wallet.  Follow LoyceV's instructions, you'll get there.

https://github.com/goatpig/BitcoinArmory/releases

Don't forget to verify the download.

[jayman5]

Thanks so far seems to have worked, however now got the screen on armory - please wait while the global trans history is scanned (showing offline).

The wheel is turning for what looks like forever

A quick google search seems to suggest i have to download the entire 16 years of bitcoin history from bitcoin core that may take hours/days??

I take it the only alternative is to sweep private keys to electrum?

[BitMaxz]

A quick google search seems to suggest i have to download the entire 16 years of bitcoin history from bitcoin core that may take hours/days??

Yes, you need to install the bitcoin core, and it must be fully synced because Armory will not work properly if your bitcoin core is not fully synced.
About how many hours or days it depends on your device specs it might take a few days or within a day.

I take it the only alternative is to sweep private keys to electrum?

If you have previously imported the rootkey into Armory, that is a good option. Even though it is offline, you can backup it once more and make sure to select export key lists to get the private keys that you can use to import into Electrum.
You can follow the guide from this link below

- https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3274219.msg34442580#msg34442580

[Forsyth Jones]

I've tried Armory around 2016-18, I found it very difficult to use, it never synced with my node and it seems that the code has not been updated since 2018, which makes me think that the devs have abandoned its development, it would be a more amazing wallet than it was in the past, what a shame.

Anyway, from what I've seen you can export the private keys of the addresses in armory, but they are not in WIF format, they are in base58 and/or hex format, when doing so, you must convert the exported private key format from base58 to WIF which is recognized by most wallets.

[BitMaxz]

I've tried Armory around 2016-18, I found it very difficult to use, it never synced with my node and it seems that the code has not been updated since 2018, which makes me think that the devs have abandoned its development, it would be a more amazing wallet than it was in the past, what a shame.

I don't think it's abandoned goatpig still active here on the forum he maintain the armory section I don't know the reason why goatpig didn't update and release a new version but the armory works just fine even on the latest version of Bitcoin Core.
The only thing that you cannot find on Armory is the most recent features that some wallets support but it works just fine if you setup this wallet properly. It is way better if you use it as an offline wallet and Electrum as your watch-only wallet.

[PX-Z]

A quick google search seems to suggest i have to download the entire 16 years of bitcoin history from bitcoin core that may take hours/days??

Yes, you need to install the bitcoin core, and it must be fully synced because Armory will not work properly if your bitcoin core is not fully synced.
About how many hours or days it depends on your device specs it might take a few days or within a day.

Do you mean downloading the whole +600 gigabyte of blockchain data? And not just pruned by some extent? That's a lot resources to be considered, it will work just fine if stored in external drive right? or it should be installed in the device (computer) it self where the armory is installed.

[DireWolfM14]

A quick google search seems to suggest i have to download the entire 16 years of bitcoin history from bitcoin core that may take hours/days??

It's been a long time since I've used armory, but I recall there is a way to use it without having to sync it with bitcoin core.  If you're using Windows check the Start Menu entries for "Armory (Offline)".  IIRC, on Linux you need to open the terminal and type "armory --offline".  As long as you know which addresses are funded and need to be recovered, you can extract the private keys for them and import them into a SPV wallet like Electrum.

I've tried Armory around 2016-18, I found it very difficult to use, it never synced with my node and it seems that the code has not been updated since 2018, which makes me think that the devs have abandoned its development, it would be a more amazing wallet than it was in the past, what a shame.

I don't think it's abandoned goatpig still active here on the forum he maintain the armory section I don't know the reason why goatpig didn't update and release a new version but the armory works just fine even on the latest version of Bitcoin Core.
The only thing that you cannot find on Armory is the most recent features that some wallets support but it works just fine if you setup this wallet properly. It is way better if you use it as an offline wallet and Electrum as your watch-only wallet.

It works on Windows, but I'm having trouble getting it to work on Debian 12.  The released version calls for Python2, but that's been depreciated in newer versions of Linux.  I did notice in the git repository that Settings.py was updated 4 months ago to allow the engine to pick the installed version of pyqt.  I'm trying to build it from source at the moment, but I keep running into missing dependencies, so it's slow going.

[nc50lc]

-snip- and it seems that the code has not been updated since 2018, which makes me think that the devs have abandoned its development, it would be a more amazing wallet than it was in the past, what a shame.

To be fair, it's just the master branch where the release binaries are built from that's stalled since 2018. (with release notes update in 2021)
The dev branch however, is slowly but constantly being updated, with the latest commit done two months ago.

I don't think it's abandoned goatpig still active here on the forum he maintain the armory section I don't know the reason why goatpig didn't update and release a new version but the armory works just fine even on the latest version of Bitcoin Core.

The next version 0.97 will be released once these backlogs are done: https://github.com/users/goatpig/projects/1/views/1
Problem is, there's only one developer working on those backlogs.

Yes, you need to install the bitcoin core, and it must be fully synced because Armory will not work properly if your bitcoin core is not fully synced.

Do you mean downloading the whole +600 gigabyte of blockchain data? And not just pruned by some extent? That's a lot resources to be considered, it will work just fine if stored in external drive right? or it should be installed in the device (computer) it self where the armory is installed.

Yes, it requires the whole blockchain, it can point to any directory where the blockchain is stored and pruning setting isn't supported.
Armory is a wallet that works on top of an existing full node, its use-case is if you don't want Bitcoin Core's wallet's features but want to use a full node.
Unfortunately, its superseded by new wallets with the latest features that can also utilize a full node software.

Anyway, from what I've seen you can export the private keys of the addresses in armory, but they are not in WIF format, they are in base58 and/or hex format, when doing so, you must convert the exported private key format from base58 to WIF which is recognized by most wallets.

Those mosaic-censored example shown in BitMaxz's link (post by HCP) are WIF but mislabeled as "Plain Base58".

[PX-Z]

... its use-case is if you don't want Bitcoin Core's wallet's features but want to use a full node.

Yeah, i can fully understand this, i also don't want to use bitcoin core as a wallet but having it for running a full node is considerable than getting VPS which needs to be paid monthly/yearly for storage subscription.