Restoring Your Valet Wallet
Two distinct situations could lead to losing access to your wallet. But the good news is that you can always regain complete access by following the few steps below.
These two situations are:
- The event of loss or damage to your mobile phone
- The event of uninstalling Valet from your phone for whatever reason.
NOTE: We cannot overemphasize the importance of writing down your 12-word recovery phrases on paper and keeping them in a safe and private location. This is the ultimate tool for restoring your wallet, whether you lost, damaged, or uninstalled Valet from your device.
1. LOSS OR DAMAGE OF DEVICE
If you lose your mobile device or it gets damaged, you can restore your wallet and regain access to your funds by following these simple steps below:
- Download Valet on your new device here
- Tap install to install the app
- Open the Valet app from your device's home screen
- Select Restore Existing Wallet.
- Select Recovery Phrase Only.
- Enter your 12-word recovery phrase in the correct order (1 to 12), and click OK.
- Congratulations, you're set!!
2. UNINSTALLED VALET FROM THE DEVICE
If you uninstalled Valet from your device and want to get back to using Valet on the same device or a new device, you may need two important tools. These tools are
A. Your 12-word recovery phrase (compulsory)
B. Your wallet Backup file
Whenever you create a new wallet on Valet, your wallet data and information are automatically backed up and saved locally on your device. This wallet data usually saves your Lightning Channel state and transaction history.
With this backup file, you will not lose connection to any Lightning channel(s) you have open before the app uninstallation. By default, this wallet backup data is usually stored in the Downloads folder of your device's file manager. You can change it through the app settings. Refer to the Settings Section above.
However, if you want to use Valet on another device, send this backup file to the new device. Note where it is saved on the new device so you can properly locate it when needed.
Follow the steps below to restore your wallet with the backup file:
- Download Valet on your device or the new device here
- Tap Install to install the app
- Open the Valet app from your device's home screen
- Select Restore Existing Wallet.
- Select Backup + recovery phrase
- Navigate to the location of the backup file on your device and select it.
- Enter your 12-word recovery phrase in the correct order (1 to 12), and click OK.
- Congratulations! You have restored your wallets and funds, including any open Lightning channels and transaction history.
Tip: With only your 12-word recovery phrase, you can restore your wallet on any other Bitcoin wallet that supports the 12-word recovery phrase.
But this will only restore the funds on your on-chain balance without restoring any lightning channels. The lightning channels will be force-closed, and any balance on them will be returned to your on-chain balance.
If a wallet supports a 12-word recovery phrase, it is compatible with BIP-39. BIP" means "Bitcoin Improvement Proposal. Read more about that here