Backups and recovery

What your recovery words restore, how to make encrypted backup files and automatic backups, how to restore, how to bring back a removed wallet, and what to do if a device is lost.

Your coins aren't stored on your phone or computer. They're on the blockchains, and what AirWallet keeps is the keys that move them. If you have a backup of those keys, you can lose a device and still get your coins back. If you don't have one, nobody can recover them, not even AirWallet's makers.

AirWallet gives you three kinds of backup:

• Recovery words: the 12 or 24 words of a recovery-phrase wallet, written on paper.
• Backup files: one encrypted file with your wallets in it, made when you ask.
• Automatic backups: encrypted files the app keeps up to date by itself, in a folder outside the app.

#Your recovery words

When you create a recovery-phrase wallet, AirWallet shows you 12 words (or 24, if you choose that). The words are the wallet itself: whoever has them has the money.

• Write them on paper, or stamp them in metal, and keep it somewhere safe and private.
• Never keep them as a photo, a screenshot, a cloud note or in a synced password manager.
• To see them again, open the wallet's ⋯ menu and select Export private key.

#What the words restore

A recovery phrase restores that wallet's keys on every chain AirWallet supports. They're standard BIP-39 words, so other wallets find the same addresses from them:

In Export private key, Restoring it elsewhere shows the wallet's fingerprint and the exact account paths, so you can check that another wallet opens the same accounts.

Things to know about other wallets:

• Zodl restores only 24-word phrases. If you want a wallet that also works in Zodl, create it with 24 words: + → Create → Recovery phrase, then 24 words.
• Zcash wallets elsewhere ask for a birthday: the date the wallet was made, or an earlier one. Export shows it.
• Monero: Export also offers Monero: 25 words for other Monero wallets, with a restore height. Feather, Cake Wallet, Monerujo and the Monero GUI restore the same Monero wallet from them.

#What the words don't restore

• Single-key wallets. That means vanity finds and private keys you imported. Each one has its own key, so back these up with a backup file.
• Monero Polyseed wallets. A Monero-only wallet made with a Polyseed has its own 16 words. Write those down separately.
• Zcash transparent vanity keys (t1…) added to a phrase wallet. The phrase doesn't cover them, and Export warns you about it.
• Watched wallets. These hold no keys. Watch them again from the offline device after a restore.
• Names, groups, contacts and settings. A backup file keeps names and more (see below).

#A passphrase

If you set a passphrase with your words (sometimes called a "25th word"), you need it too. Each passphrase opens a different wallet, so a typo opens an empty one. When you import, check that the addresses match the ones you know.

#Backup files

A backup file holds your wallets with their names, addresses and private keys, encrypted with a password you choose.

1. Go to Settings, then Back up all keys….
2. Under What, keep Backup: names, addresses and private keys.
3. Type a password for this backup file, twice. It's the backup's own password, separate from your app lock.
4. Select Save. (On Android, select Export.)

On a computer, the file goes into your Downloads folder. On Android, you get the backup as text to copy and keep somewhere safe.

The password is stretched with Argon2id before it encrypts the file. Without the password, nobody can open the file, so make it long and unique.

The other formats under What are Private keys only, Spreadsheet (.csv): name, address, private key and Addresses only (.csv, no private keys).

A backup file only includes wallets whose keys are on this device. Watched wallets aren't in it.

#Automatic backups

With automatic backups on, AirWallet writes an encrypted copy of every wallet into a folder of yours, watched wallets included. You don't need to remember to do it:

• When your wallets change, it updates one file (airwallet-backup-latest.json) within a few minutes.
• Once a week, it also writes a dated copy and keeps it. It never writes over an older file.

The files are encrypted the same way as a backup file, with a password of their own. AirWallet keeps what it needs to write them inside its own encrypted data, so it never has to ask you. Opening one always needs the password.

To turn them on, or to check on them:

1. Go to Settings, then Automatic backups.
2. On Android, select Choose folder and pick a folder. On a computer, Show folder opens the folder.
3. Type a password for the backups, twice. Keep it with your recovery words.
4. Select Turn on. The first backup is written straight away.

The same sheet shows the status and when the last copy was made. It also has Back up now and Turn off.

#Restore your wallets

You can restore on any copy of AirWallet, on any platform.

#From recovery words

1. Select +, then Import.
2. Type or paste your words.
3. If you set a passphrase, open A passphrase too? and type it.
4. Select Import.

The Import box also takes phrases from Phantom, MetaMask, Sparrow, Ledger, Trezor, Cake and Zodl, and private keys from any chain. After you import a phrase, AirWallet looks for its other accounts that have been used, such as Phantom's or MetaMask's extra accounts, and offers to add them.

Monero and Zcash find your coins by scanning the blockchain from a start date. An imported phrase doesn't know when the wallet was made, so the scan starts from recently. If the wallet had Monero or Zcash before then, open the wallet's ⋯ menu and select Monero: scan from a date… or Zcash: scan from a date…. Pick the day of the first payment, or earlier. Each day further back is more to scan.

#From a backup file

1. Select +, then Import.
2. Select Files… and choose the backup file. On a computer, you can also drop the file onto the window or paste its text into the box.
3. Type the backup's password.

A backup made by a newer version of AirWallet says so: update this copy first.

#Removed wallets

When you remove a wallet, AirWallet only takes it out of the list. It stays on the device, encrypted with everything else, until you bring it back.

1. Go to Settings, then Removed wallets. This button only appears once you've removed a wallet.
2. Select Bring back next to the wallet you want.

#If AirWallet can't open its saved data

If the saved wallets ever fail to open, AirWallet shows "Your saved wallets didn't open" and never saves over them. You can select Try again, or Keep them aside and start fresh. Starting fresh leaves the old data on the device, untouched, and you bring your wallets back from their recovery words or a backup file.

#If you lose a device

Your coins are still on the blockchains, and your words or a backup bring them back.

1. On another device, install AirWallet and restore your wallets from your words or a backup file (see above).
2. Once they're restored, move the money to a new wallet with new words, on a device you trust. Whoever has the old device can't read the wallet's data. With the app lock on, they can't even open the app. Moving the money anyway means the old device no longer matters.
3. If you used the lost device as your offline signer, watch the new wallet from your everyday wallet: on the new offline device, go to Receive → Show to my online wallet.

If you lost your everyday device and it only watched wallets, it held no keys. Install AirWallet on a new device and watch your offline wallets again. Your coins aren't at risk.