Use this article if:
- You have your Secret Recovery Phrase
- You want to import that Secret Recovery Phrase/wallet into MetaMask
Restore Secret Recovery Phrase to a new MetaMask install
- During setup from a fresh install of MetaMask, click 'Import Wallet'. On Mobile, this will read 'Import using Secret Recovery Phrase'.
- Enter your Secret Recovery Phrase and follow the prompts.
For an existing MetaMask install, you will need to reset your wallet in order to restore from a Secret Recovery Phrase.
WARNING: Importing a Secret Recovery Phrase into MetaMask will ERASE all existing MetaMask data. In other words, if you are using one wallet in MetaMask, and you import another one, all data relating to the first wallet will be overwritten and no longer accessible.
In such cases, make sure you have your Secret Recovery Phrase and any private keys (from hardware wallets, external accounts) backed up, and your wallet will be safe.
What about restoring multiple accounts?
If you have multiple accounts created under one Secret Recovery Phrase, they will only be automatically restored in certain circumstances. Please note this does not apply to imported accounts or hardware wallets, which must always be manually re-added.
MetaMask will attempt to add your additional accounts where possible (assuming they were not imported) by checking your previous accounts in ascending order. Accounts are added if they have a non-zero balance of ETH on Ethereum mainnet. However, when it encounters an account with 0 ETH, this process ends, and any beyond that will not be added.
However, even if they aren't automatically added, you can easily get them back by re-adding accounts until you reach the one you're looking for. For each old account that you had in your original installation, you must add it by "creating" a new account.
If you do not see the addresses you are looking for, you either have the wrong Secret Recovery Phrase or have an external JSON or private key that you still need to reimport.
You will need to add your tokens after restoring
Since restoring your wallet essentially means starting from scratch on that MetaMask instance (although, of course, leaving on-chain history completely unaltered), you will need to re-add tokens.
To restore and view tokens, please see this guide.
