How can I recover a wallet using the mnemonic seed?

Question

If I lose my wallet.dat file how can I use my mnemonic seed to recover my wallet?

Is the recovery procedure different depending on which Monero wallet I used to create it?

Answer 1

Right now there are two primary ways to do so:

1. Go to the folder containing monero-wallet-cli and run "./monero-wallet-cli --restore-deterministic-wallet", entering your mnemonic seed when prompted. NOTE that this will simply restore your wallet keys. You will still need to scan a blockchain (either your local blockchain or a remote blockchain) to see your balance and make transactions.

2. Visit mymonero.com and simply enter the seed in the login box. You will be given a notice that importing your seed will cost you 1 XMR (recently lowered from 10 XMR because of the increase value of Monero) mymonero service has to scan the entire blockchain, but going through this method requires no prior setup.

Answer 2

There are several ways to do this. Choose a method below. I recommend following the steps for the GUI.

Graphical User Interface (GUI)

You can import into the GUI during the initial setup with ease. After selecting your language, select the middle option as shown below:

Command Line Wallet (CLI)

This page on the Monero website gives a great overview of how to do this with the command line wallet. Download the wallet software for your operating system here. The instructions are below:

1. Retrieve your 25 word mnemonic seed that you saved when creating your old Monero wallet

2. Open a command prompt and navigate to the drive and directory that contains monero-wallet-cli

3. At the command prompt type: monero-wallet-cli --restore-deterministic-wallet

4. Once you press enter you will be prompted for a wallet file name. Give your wallet a new name, any name will do

5. Press enter again and you will be prompted for a password. Give your wallet a new and long password

6. Press enter again you will be prompted to repeat the password

7. Press enter again and you will be prompted for the 25 word electrum style mnemonic seed that you retrieved earlier

8. You will then be prompted with "Restore from specific blockchain height (optional, default 0):" Default will start the restore process from the beginning of the Monero blockchain. If you don't know the specific blockchain height, just hit enter. (Specifying a specific blockchain height will start the restore process from that specific height. This will save a bit of time in scanning, if you know what starting blockchain height your initial funds were transacted for this specific account.)

After you have entered the 25 word mnemonic seed and have chosen your specific blockchain height, monero-wallet-cli will generate the same public address and view key as your old wallet and begin the refresh process automatically. (Please be patient as the refresh process may take a while.)

MyMonero Web Wallet

MyMonero provides the option of restoring from seed for an import fee. This fee is to cover their costs of scanning the blockchain. Go to the MyMonero website, click "log in", and paste your mnemonic seed in the "Your Private Login Key" field. Select your appropriate language. Wait a few seconds after clicking "Enter my account", and then you should see this dialog show up:

Click on the first option to import transactions. As mentioned earlier, you will be charged a fee.