How to Recover a Monero Wallet With Your Seed Phrase

What your 25-word seed phrase actually is

A Monero seed is a list of 25 words generated from a fixed dictionary. The first 24 words encode your private spend key, and the 25th word is a checksum that lets wallet software detect typos. From that spend key, the wallet derives everything else it needs, including your view key and your public address.

This matters because the seed is not a password and it is not linked to any account. There is no server that knows it and no reset button. Whoever holds the 25 words controls the wallet. That is the whole point of self-custody, and it is also why a single backup mistake can be permanent.

Before you start: gather the right pieces

You need the full 25-word seed in the correct order. If you only have the first 24, most wallets can still recover because the 25th word is just a checksum, but it is best to have all of them.

If you set an optional passphrase on top of your seed, sometimes called a seed offset or 25th-word passphrase, you also need that exact string. It is case sensitive and is not stored anywhere. A seed plus a passphrase produces a completely different wallet than the seed alone, so a wrong or forgotten passphrase will silently restore an empty wallet rather than throw an error.

You may also want your wallet creation date or block height. This is optional, but providing it makes the restore scan much faster because the wallet skips every block before that point.

Recovering in the official GUI wallet

Open the Monero GUI, choose to restore a wallet, and select restore from seed. Type the 25 words into the seed field, separated by single spaces. Set a new wallet file name and a new local password. That password only protects the file on this machine and has nothing to do with your seed.

If you know roughly when the wallet was first created, enter the restore height or date in the advanced options. Then let the wallet connect to a node and synchronize. During the scan it checks every transaction against your keys and rebuilds your balance and history.

Recovering in the CLI or other wallets

In the command line wallet, run the restore command, often monero-wallet-cli with the restore-deterministic-wallet flag, then paste your seed when prompted. You will set a new file name, a new password, and an optional restore height.

Mobile and third-party wallets such as the official mobile app, Feather, Cake, or Monerujo follow the same logic even if the menus differ. Look for an option labeled restore or import, choose seed phrase, and enter the 25 words. The underlying keys are standard across compliant Monero wallets, so a seed created in one can usually be restored in another.

Why your balance might look wrong at first

A freshly restored wallet has to scan the blockchain to find your outputs. Until the sync reaches the present block, your balance can show as zero or as lower than expected. This is normal and does not mean funds are missing. Let it finish.

Syncing the full chain can take a while, especially against a remote node or on a slow connection. If you set a restore height that is too late, the wallet will miss earlier transactions, so when in doubt set the height earlier rather than later, or set it to zero and accept a longer scan.

Common mistakes that cost people their XMR

The biggest one is a transcription error. People misread their own handwriting, swap two words, or drop a word. The checksum catches many typos but not all reorderings. Read each word carefully and confirm the wallet accepts the seed without a checksum warning.

The second is forgetting the optional passphrase. If you ever added one, the seed alone restores a different, empty wallet, and it is easy to assume the funds are gone when they are simply in the passphrase-protected version.

The third is trusting a seed you typed into an untrusted website or app. Never enter your 25 words anywhere except wallet software you control. No legitimate service, exchange, or swap needs your seed. A non-custodial swap, for example, only ever needs a receiving address, never your private keys.

After recovery: tighten your backup

Once you are back in, treat this as a chance to fix whatever went wrong. Write the seed on paper or stamp it into metal, store it offline, and keep at least one copy in a separate physical location. Do not photograph it, do not store it in a cloud notes app, and do not paste it into a password manager that syncs to the internet if you can avoid it.

If you suspect your seed was ever exposed, the safe move is to create a brand new wallet and send your funds there. Because Monero transactions are private, moving to a fresh seed cleanly separates you from any wallet that might be compromised.