Electrum wallet recovery

You can get back into an Electrum wallet two ways: from the seed, or from the wallet file and its password. Check which you have, then read the section that matches.

Have the seed? You can set a new password

If you still have your Electrum seed, restore it in Electrum and choose a new password. You don't need the old one. If you added a seed extension (extra custom words) when you made the wallet, you need that too. Electrum makes its own seed type, not BIP39, so restore an Electrum seed as an Electrum seed and use the BIP39 option only for words that came from another wallet.

Have the wallet file but not the seed?

Electrum saves wallets in a wallets folder:

• Windows: %APPDATA%\Electrum\wallets
• Mac and Linux: ~/.electrum/wallets

The default file is called default_wallet, though you may have renamed it. Copy the file first. If it's encrypted and you've lost the password, we can test your guesses against it on offline machines.

A watching-only wallet holds public keys only, so it can show a balance but can't spend. Hardware-wallet and multisig setups also need their device or co-signers, so a password search alone won't unlock them.

Restored an empty wallet, or missing a word?

An empty wallet after restoring usually means a different seed type, a missing seed extension or a different setup from the original. If a word is missing, keep the words you have in order, along with an address you know the wallet used. Our missing-word guide explains what a search needs, and our guide to finding an old Bitcoin wallet helps if you can't find the file.

Start your recovery →