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Lost or broken hardware wallet? How to get your bitcoin back

Lost it, dropped it, or had it stolen? Good news first: your bitcoin was never inside the device. A hardware wallet is a very stubborn keyring. The coins sit on the Bitcoin network, and your recovery words can rebuild the keys on a new device in about twenty minutes. This guide covers every version of "it's gone", step by step, without selling you a brand.

First: three things to do (and one not to)

1. Find your recovery words. The words you wrote down (usually 12, 20 or 24) at setup, plus your passphrase if you added one. Check they are all there and readable. Do not photograph them while you are at it.
2. Work out which situation you are in using the table below. Lost or stolen is urgent. Broken is not.
3. Get a replacement device from the maker's own shop or an official reseller listed on the maker's site. Not a marketplace, not second hand, not "a mate's spare".

The one thing not to do: type your recovery words into a website, a support chat, a form, or any app or screen that someone else pointed you to. Ever. A normal recovery happens on the new device's own screen and buttons. Anyone asking for the words, however official they look, is the second disaster of your week. More on that in recovery scams.

Which situation are you in?

How to restore your wallet on a new device

The exact menus differ by brand, but the process is the same everywhere. Allow half an hour, somewhere private, with your words to hand.

1. Check the new device. Seals intact, nothing pre-written on the recovery card, bought from the maker or an official reseller. Our hardware wallet setup checklist covers every check.
2. Install the maker's app from their official website or your phone's official app store, and let it check the firmware.
3. Choose "restore" or "recover", not "create new". Not the usual button, but the right one today.
4. Pick the right backup length (usually 12, 20 or 24 words) and enter the words on the device itself, in order. Check each word before confirming. Many lists only need the first four letters, so watch out for near twins like "angle" and "angry".
5. Set a new PIN on the device. Not your bank card PIN, not a birthday.
6. Add your passphrase if you used one, exactly as before, including capitals and spaces.
7. Check the result. Add a Bitcoin account in the app and wait for it to sync. Your balance and history should reappear. If you noted your first receive address at setup, check it matches.
8. Decide whether to move your coins. If the old device or the words could be in someone else's hands, follow the next section. If not, you are done. Put the kettle on.

Lost or stolen: move your coins to a brand new wallet

A PIN slows a thief down. Many devices also wipe themselves after a run of wrong guesses: three on Ledger devices, sixteen on most Trezor models and ten on the Trezor Safe 7, according to the makers. That is good protection against a random finder, but it is not a reason to relax. A weak PIN can be guessed, devices have had physical attacks in the past, and if your words were stored anywhere near the device, the PIN does not matter at all.

So the safe move is to treat the old words as retired, and move everything to keys nobody else could ever have seen:

1. Set up a new hardware wallet as a brand new wallet (choose "create new", not "restore"), so it makes fresh recovery words that nobody else could have seen.
2. Write the new words down properly and check them. See how to back up a seed phrase.
3. Get spending access to the old wallet. Best option: restore the old words on a second new device. If you cannot get one quickly, a reputable Bitcoin wallet app you install yourself can work as a short stopgap. Normally your words should never touch a phone, but these ones are being retired within the hour, and speed matters more now. The app must support your backup type (few apps read Trezor 20 word or multi-share backups), you must enter your passphrase if you set one, and it must use the same address type as before, or it may show zero.
4. Send everything from the old wallet to a receive address on the new one. That means every account and address type you used, plus any passphrase wallets. Check the address on the new device's screen. If you think someone has your words, choose a high fee so it confirms in the next block or two. Our lesson on fees and the mempool explains how.
5. Retire the old words. Wait for the payments to confirm, then re-check that every old account (and any passphrase wallet) shows empty and the new wallet shows the coins. Only then delete any stopgap app wallet and destroy the old backup so nobody mistakes it for the live one later.

If the coins have already moved out of the old wallet before you could act, Bitcoin payments cannot be reversed. Save the transaction IDs and addresses, report the theft to the police, and read how to report a Bitcoin scam for where to send the details if you are in the UK.

Restored, but the balance shows zero?

Deep breath. This is the most common fright in recovery, and it is nearly always a settings problem rather than missing coins. Check these in order:

1. Passphrase. If you ever set one (sometimes called the 25th word), the words alone open a different, empty wallet. So does a passphrase with one wrong letter or a capital in the wrong place. Every passphrase opens its own wallet, so "empty" is a clue, not proof.
2. Address type. Your words can make several families of addresses, and the app may be looking in the wrong one. Check what your old addresses started with and add that account type in the app. See the table below.
3. Still syncing. Some apps take a while to scan. Wallets usually stop looking after about 20 unused addresses in a row, so if you handed out lots of addresses that were never paid, you may need to raise the "gap limit" in the app's settings.
4. Wrong account or app. Make sure you added a Bitcoin account, not another coin, and look for "Account 2" or similar if you used more than one.
5. A word typo that still passed. The last word works as a checksum, so most typos get rejected, but not all of them. Wipe and re-enter carefully, comparing each word against your backup.
6. A different backup format. If you are restoring an old app wallet such as Electrum, its own style of 12 words is not the usual standard and will not restore on most hardware wallets. See backup types.

Not sure what your old addresses looked like? Check an old withdrawal email or your exchange's withdrawal history for the address you sent to. More on the formats in Bitcoin addresses explained.

Will my words work on a different brand?

• 12 or 24 words (BIP39): the common standard. These restore on almost every Bitcoin hardware wallet and on most reputable wallet apps. Switching brand after a loss is normally fine.
• 20 words, or several sets of words (SLIP39): used by Trezor for its newer single and multi-share backups. Most other brands cannot read these, so plan to restore on a Trezor or on a wallet that clearly lists SLIP39 support.
• Electrum's own seed: a different format from BIP39. Restore it in Electrum, then move the coins if you want them on a hardware wallet.
• Multisig: you need enough of the keys (for example two of three) and the wallet's configuration file, sometimes called a descriptor. Words alone are not enough. If you lose one device in a two of three setup, you are not in trouble yet, but replace that key soon rather than run with no spare.

Whatever the format, the rule is the same: the words go on the new device, never on a website. Blocky's rule of thumb: if a screen you did not buy asks for your words, close it.

Recovery scams: the second disaster

People who have just lost a wallet are a scammer's favourite customers. Expect these:

• Fake support. Search adverts, social media replies and "help desk" accounts that offer to sort it out and then ask for your words. Real makers never ask for them.
• "Crypto recovery" firms. They promise to trace and return lost or stolen bitcoin for an upfront fee. Nobody can pull coins back from the network for a fee. If they could, they would not need yours.
• Fake apps and lookalike sites. A copy of the maker's app or website that asks you to "verify" or "sync" your recovery words.
• Letters and QR codes. Official-looking post or emails saying your device needs an urgent check. Leaked customer lists have been used for exactly this.

The full list of tricks is in Avoiding scams. If you have already been caught, start with how to report a Bitcoin scam.

What to do with the old device

• Before you bin anything: check that every wallet on it is backed up or empty. A wiped device with an unbacked wallet is a lesson nobody wants.
• If it turns up later: only reuse it after your coins have moved to the new wallet. Reset it to factory settings and set it up as a fresh spare. If it was out of your sight for a while, or looks opened, retire it.
• If it is broken: do not send it to a repair shop or a stranger who offers to "get the coins off it". You do not need the device, you need the words. Only after you have restored on the new device and seen your balance, reset it if it still powers on, then recycle it as electronic waste.

Do this now, before you ever need it

The best time to test your backup was the day you made it. The second best is today.

1. Do a test recovery. Many devices offer a "check backup" option that confirms your words without exposing them. Or restore your words on a spare hardware wallet, confirm the same first receive address appears, then wipe the spare. Our lesson on seed phrases and backups walks through it.
2. Write down the boring details next to your words: the backup type (usually 12, 20 or 24 words), the address type your wallet uses, and whether a passphrase exists. Store the passphrase itself separately from the words.
3. Keep the backup away from the device. A thief who gets both gets everything. Consider a metal backup that survives fire and water: see paper or metal.
4. Pick a strong PIN, longer than four digits if your device allows it.
5. Tell your future self, or your family, how recovery works without giving away the words. See Bitcoin inheritance for how to do that safely.
6. Run the self-custody check to spot any other gaps.

FAQ

Not financial advice. General education only. Device features and limits change with firmware updates, so check your maker's own support pages for your exact model. Do your own research.