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Trezor · Lockout

Trezor locked: how many attempts you have left and what it means

If your Trezor makes you wait longer and longer between attempts, it isn’t broken: it is defending itself. And unlike other devices it doesn’t wipe itself, which gives you an advantage: time to think. Use it well, because the wait grows very fast.

September 23, 2026 · 4-minute read

How the defence works

Each wrong code doubles the waiting time before the next attempt. At first it is seconds; after a few failures it is hours, and then days. There is no magic number of attempts after which it wipes: there simply comes a point where continuing stops making human sense.

That is good for you in one way and bad in another. Good: your wallet is still inside the device, you haven’t lost it by trying. Bad: if you don’t remember the code, the waiting time makes it unreachable all the same.

What to do while you wait

  1. Look for your recovery phrase. If it turns up, none of this matters: you reset the device and restore.
  2. Write every possible code on paper, ordered by likelihood. Don’t try until the list is done.
  3. Think about context: which PIN you used back then on your phone, your card, your home alarm.
  4. Ask at home whether anyone set it up with you or whether you wrote it down together.
Do not reset the device to «start fresh» unless you have the phrase in front of you, written down and verified. The reset wipes the wallet and without the phrase that is final. It is the most expensive mistake made with hardware.

If you have the phrase

Then the PIN doesn’t matter at all. You reset the device, set it up again with your words and get back exactly the same wallet: the same addresses, the same balance, the same history. You can even do it on a different device, or on a compatible one from another brand.

If you are missing a word of the phrase, that case has a very good outlook: it is explained in I lost one word of my 24-word seed.

If you have neither the PIN nor the phrase

The honest answer is that there is no way out, and it is worth knowing before paying anyone. The device is designed so that not even the manufacturer can get in. Anyone offering to open it or asking you to mail it to them is, at best, charging you for nothing. Read it in can a Ledger or a Trezor be hacked?.

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