Recovering Electrum Password for OSX

[Higheducation92]

Hey Everyone,

I am very new to using bitcoin wallets as well as coding. I recently downloaded the OSX Executable file of Electrum and made a one time btc movement upon creating the account. I neglected to take down the seed and must have mistyped my intended password because now when I return to the wallet I am unable to access it.

Would anyone be able to assist me in brute forcing my password?

I am having serious trouble even finding my wallet.dat file and when I try to run the recommended code in Finder in order to find my Electrum folders, nothing is found.

Please assist me if you can, I appreciate any and all help. I would be happy to share some BTC with whoever can help me get into the account. Thank you very much.

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[notlist3d]

Be VERY careful with who you share the file with.  If someone does happen to get into the wallet they could take it all.

That being said if you have a decent password cracking it might not be quick/easy.

[Possum577]

You should move this to the technical section of this forum - you'll find people with more experience to give you a better or best solution.

[btchris]

You could give btcrecover a try (it's a Bitcoin password recovery tool which supports Electrum). I've never tried it on OSX before but I believe it should work (if you can find the wallet file that is...). Let me know if you have any trouble setting it up.

Edited to add: I believe the default wallet filename for Electrum is called default_wallet on all operating systems, although I don't know where it's located on OSX...

(full disclosure: I'm the developer of btcrecover)

[Higheducation92]

Currently, I am struggling with step #5 of your guide:

You will need to run btcrecover.py with at least two command-line options, --wallet FILE to identify the wallet file name and either --tokenlist FILE or --passwordlist FILE (the FILE is optional for --passwordlist), depending on whether you're using a Token File or Passwordlist. If you're using Typos or Autosave, please refer the sections above for additional options you'll want to add.

What follows is an example on windows. The details for your system will be different, for example the download location may be different, or the wallet file name may differ, so you'll need to make some changes. Any additional options are all placed on the same line.

cd \Users\Chris\Downloads\btcrecover-master
C:\python27\python btcrecover.py --wallet wallet.dat --tokenlist tokens.txt --other-options...

I am having trouble writing the command lines to identify my wallet file name and token file. I am very confused by the example that you have provided. What does the code "cd" mean? Is the code that you indicated above as an example the same step as step #5? How would this differ for someone using a Mac? 

I found the wallet and have everything set up, but cannot get the file to begin running. My btcrecover-master folder is at this location /Users/Ben/Desktop/btcrecover-master and my wallet is at this location /Users/Desktop/Ben/btcrecover-master/Wallet, do you mind assisting me in determining how I would write the code for this in order to proceed? Also, where do I write this code: in the Python Shell Box that has lines of code being with ">>>" or should I do it in the btcrecover.py file itself? If I should do it in the btcrecover.py file itself, does it matter where in that file I add the code?

When I try to do it in the Python Shell file, everytime I try I receive various syntaxs.

These syntaxs include:

"unexpected character after line continuation character"
"invalid syntax"
"Traceback"

I can't figure this out...

[Baitty]

There's some people who are offering password recovery over at the services sub forum you might want to contact them see if they can help.

Here's one: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=717334.0

Another you've already tried out btcrecover which seems to be quite good if you are experienced in password recovery.

[Higheducation92]

My lack of coding experience is making btcrecovery extremely challenging. I have set everything up but cant get it to start. I don't know how to write the proper command lines necessary for python to understand where my wallet and tokens files are. When I try to create the btcrecovertokens-auto file I am not doing it right because btcrecover never runs.

[pissedoff]

If you are new and havent got much bitcoin in it it might be better just to create a new wallet how much roughly have you got in there?

[btchris]

Currently, I am struggling with step #5 of your guide:
...
cd \Users\Chris\Downloads\btcrecover-master
C:\python27\python btcrecover.py --wallet wallet.dat --tokenlist tokens.txt --other-options...[/color]

I am having trouble writing the command lines to identify my wallet file name and token file. I am very confused by the example that you have provided. What does the code "cd" mean? Is the code that you indicated above as an example the same step as step #5? How would this differ for someone using a Mac? 

Those commands were an example for Windows. I'm not much of an OS X person, so I might be wrong, but give this a try.

Start in the Applications folder, then open the Utilities folder, then open the Terminal application. From here, type in this:

Code:

cd /Users/Ben/Desktop/btcrecover-master
python btcrecover.py --wallet Wallet --tokenlist tokens.txt --other-options...

You shouldn't need to, but if you're interested there's a Terminal tutorial for OS X you can read over here: http://blog.teamtreehouse.com/introduction-to-the-mac-os-x-command-line

[Higheducation92]

I contacted you through e-mail, but will post here too for others. Using the code you provided in terminal, I succesfully can run the btcrecover.py script. Now I am trying to have PyCrypto work for the script to speed up this process.

How do I install pycrypto once I have it downloaded? I tried running the setup.py file and tried putting its folder in the btcrecover-master folder, but neither work. When I run btcrecover.py the file still displays "warning can't find PyCrypyto".

When I type the below into Terminal, the terminal asks for my password and provides me with a warning. Upon this time it will not let me enter a password, so using the below in terminal does not seem to work:
 
sudo apt-get install python-pip
sudo pip install pycrypto

*This code causes a warning as described above and will not work in Terminal.

[vamosrafa]

Did you have any luck retreiving your password highereducation with this script? I have an idea of what my password is, and want to give this software a go. Would rather donate to the open source software, but I am willing to try the wallet receovery guy too.

[btchris]

Did you have any luck retreiving your password highereducation with this script? I have an idea of what my password is, and want to give this software a go. Would rather donate to the open source software, but I am willing to try the wallet receovery guy too.

Although Higheducation92 did get the script working, I don't know if he ended up finding his password. I don't think he ended up installing PyCrypto. The PyCrypto install is optional (it speeds up Electrum and MultiBit searches), and on OS X it might be tricky. I did update the Tutorial with instructions on how to install PyCrypto on OS X, but I don't know if the instructions actually work.... (On Linux and Windows, installing PyCrypto is a bit easier.)

At any rate, if you have any specific questions, I'll try my best to answer them.

-Chris