MetaMask · Forgotten password
Recovering your MetaMask password: what can and can’t be done
First, some good news a lot of people don’t know: if you still have your twelve words, you have lost nothing and you don’t need to hire anyone. The MetaMask password is only the lock on your computer, not the lock on your money. If you lost both, the case gets harder — but it isn’t necessarily hopeless.
First: what exactly did you lose?
MetaMask has two different secrets, and almost everyone mixes them up. Telling them apart is the step that decides everything else.
- The password: the one you type to unlock the extension in that browser, on that computer. It is local. It doesn’t exist on any server, and nobody at MetaMask has it.
- The Secret Recovery Phrase: the twelve words you were shown when you created the wallet. That is the real key. With it you can get in from any phone or computer on earth, with or without the password.
If you have the twelve words, stop reading about recovery: your problem is solved in five minutes, for free.
You have the 12 words: do it yourself, today
- On the MetaMask lock screen, click «Forgot password?».
- Type your twelve words in the order you wrote them down.
- Choose a new password. This time save it in a password manager, not on a loose piece of paper.
- Check your accounts. If one is missing, don’t panic: you may need to re-add it with «Add account», because MetaMask only restores the first ones automatically.
You only forgot the password (and don’t have the phrase)
This is the real recovery case. Your wallet still exists: MetaMask keeps a locked file in your own browser, called the vault, and your phrase is inside it. The password is the key to that file. Recovering access means trying passwords against that file until one opens it.
And here is the detail that decides your case: you can’t try quickly. Every attempt forces the computer through a deliberately slow calculation. In wallets created years ago that calculation was about sixty times faster than in today’s, so an old vault is far more workable than a recent one. I put numbers on it in passwords in 2013 versus today.
That is why what decides whether your case is viable is not computing power but how much you remember. If you can say «it was one of these four words, with a two-digit number at the end and maybe a capital letter», that is a few thousand combinations and they can be tried. If you remember absolutely nothing, there is nowhere to start.
| Your situation | Can it be done? |
|---|---|
| You have the 12 words | Yes, and without anyone’s help |
| Forgot the password but remember fragments | Yes, this is the typical workable case |
| Forgot the password and remember nothing | Almost never |
| Password generated at random by a manager | No |
| No password, no phrase, no file | No |
What to save before touching anything
If you are going to try anything, protect the file first. If you uninstall MetaMask, «clean» your browser with a maintenance tool, or reinstall the system, that vault is gone and with it the only copy of your phrase. Copy your browser profile and store it in two separate places before you do anything else. The exact steps are in back up before touching anything.
What does not exist, no matter who offers it
- MetaMask support that unlocks you. There is none. Nobody at the company can get into your wallet, because the password never leaves your computer.
- A program that «decrypts» the vault. It isn’t decrypted, it is guessed. Anyone telling you otherwise is selling smoke.
- Recovering the full phrase if you lost it entirely and no file is left. That is never recovered, not by me and not by anyone. It is explained in can a completely lost phrase be recovered?.
If you want me to look at it
To tell you whether your case has a way out I don’t need your password or your phrase. I just need to know roughly what year you created the wallet, what you remember about the password (rough length, whether it had numbers, whether it was a word of yours) and whether you still have the browser or a copy of it. With that I’ll tell you for free whether it is worth going further.