Password recovery question , can load wallet but forgot PW/ seed can't send BTC?

[xxDUFFYxx]

I accidentally sent btc to the default_wallet in electrum for which I don't know the password or seed . I've tried every password I use and nothing , I made this wallet a long time ago and never have used it but now it has btc in it that I need out . Any help please .

[DeathAndTaxes]

If there was a way to bypass encryption it would be useless.  An attacker would just use the same bypass to spend coins without the password.  Unless you can remember the password the coins are effectively lost.

[xxDUFFYxx]

I think it was something simple , is there a way to try to bruteforce it ? I saw something a while ago about doing this ? Like I have the dat file , can load the wallet I just can't for the life of me remember the password . The btc I sent to the wallet yesterday is the first transaction on the wallet , I never used this wallet prior but it always loads first .

[guitarplinker]

A user made a script a couple years ago for bruteforcing wallets. Here's a link to his post: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=85495.msg942171#msg942171

I know it works with Qt wallets (I had to use it myself about a year and a half ago) but I'm not sure if it will work with Electrum wallets.

Your other option is to ask Wallet Recovery Services if they can help you out. If it was a simple password (< 6 characters) then chances are they might be able to crack your wallet password and get you access to your funds.

[TTom]

I accidentally sent btc to the default_wallet in electrum for which I don't know the password or seed . I've tried every password I use and nothing , I made this wallet a long time ago and never have used it but now it has btc in it that I need out . Any help please .

Same thing happened to me.  I installed Electrum to poke around about a year ago and must have set up a wallet with a password.

Here I am a year later and I installed 2.0, opened it and didn't even think about the fact that I set up a wallet previously, and Electrum opened this old wallet.  Transferred bitcoins to it and then got prompted for a password when I tried to transfer them out of it. 

I have no idea what the password could be.  I mean I tried all my personal usual suspects to no avail.

I completely own that it's on me but it might be helpful in future versions if you install a newer version of Electrum than the wallet "version" (confirmed that there are such things) some prompt comes up to warn you that you're using an older wallet instead of the application just starting up ready for use by opening the default wallet, if it exists.  Or require the wallet password when opening the application.

I mean I get why it just opens the default wallet assuming that you have your shit together enough to know you had a previous wallet on your computer but it still seems like an frustrating disconnect to casual users.

Anyway, to answer your question, no, there's not much you can do but join me in the PEBKAC club.

 

[btchris]

I'm pretty late in responding here, but I thought I'd do so anyways.

There is (at least) one tool that can attempt brute-forcing an Electrum wallet, it's available here: https://github.com/gurnec/btcrecover.

The Quick Start is here: https://github.com/gurnec/btcrecover/blob/master/TUTORIAL.md#btcrecover-tutorial

Of course, it's pretty much useless if you have no idea what your password is, but if you do have an idea it might help. (Full disclosure: I'm the author of that tool.)

If anyone has any questions about it, just let me know.

[xxDUFFYxx]

it's got .25 btc not a lot but a lot to me . is there a default password for the default wallet?

[guitarplinker]

it's got .25 btc not a lot but a lot to me . is there a default password for the default wallet?

There isn't a default password for an Electrum wallet. The password on the wallet would be a password that you set earlier. If it's worth it to you, and you think that your password is 6 characters or less try and use BTCRecover. Start with a scan for just one character, then two, three, etc. If you've tried up to five or six characters, then I'd stop because chances are you won't find the password seeing as each character makes it exponentially more difficult to find the potential password.