Mycelium · Old wallets
Mycelium: old Android wallets and how they are recovered
Mycelium cases usually come with one good thing and one bad. The good: whoever used Mycelium in 2014 bought cheap, so there is usually something worth the effort. The bad: they are wallets from an era with several different formats, and working out which is yours takes a while.
What you have, exactly
- The twelve-word phrase. Mycelium adopted it as the main backup, and if you have it written down your case solves itself: restore it in any modern compatible wallet.
- Individual keys. In older versions it was common to export or store loose keys, one per address, sometimes password-protected.
- Just the phone. If it still boots and the app opens, you have everything: go into the backup settings and write the phrase down on paper before anything else.
If all you have are loose keys
A loose key controls one address and nothing more. That means two things: if your funds were spread across several addresses you need all the keys, and if any of those keys is password-protected you have an ordinary password-recovery case. How to tell each key format apart is in keys starting with 5, K or L.
The mistake that ruins these cases
Factory-resetting the phone to «leave it clean» before selling or giving it away. Once that is done, if you did not write the phrase down, absolutely nothing remains: the app keeps no copy on any server and the company has no way to help. If the phone still exists, treat it as if it held a one-of-a-kind document, because it does.
When there is a real recovery case
| What you have | Outlook |
|---|---|
| The full phrase | You need nobody |
| A phrase missing one word | Very good outlook |
| A loose key with a half-remembered password | Workable |
| A phone that boots | Excellent: get the phrase out today |
| Nothing but the memory of having used Mycelium | There is no case |