The MEW wallet app does not allow users to export, import, view, or access their individual private keys. Your recovery phrase serves as your wallet key and can be used to restore your MEW wallet account(s) in any interface that accepts 24-word phrases.

This is for the security of your wallet. Your private key should remain private. MEW wallet utilizes multi-layer encryption and isolation to keep your individual keys safely stored away locally in your device. Your keys are heavily encrypted and completely separate from the outside world. That means no one has access to them, including you. A similar approach is used by hardware wallets, the highest standard of security in the cryptocurrency space – the user receives a seed phrase for purposes of wallet recovery, but individual private keys stay hidden.

Make sure you back up your MEW wallet as soon as possible after creating it – and before sending any funds to it – by writing down your recovery phrase and saving it in a secure location. Just like a private key, the phrase can be used to restore your wallet in MEW or any other wallet that accepts phrases for recovery. There are many Ethereum wallets out there that do, including hardware wallets Trezor and Ledger, MetaMask, and multiple mobile wallets.



MEW does not collect or store any user information, and it doesn’t have access to your wallet. If you lose your phrase, we won’t be able to recover it for you, that’s why it’s so important to have it saved securely. Don’t type your phrase into a Word doc, don’t take a screenshot, and don’t store it in an email or in the cloud. Write it down with a pen, and don’t use it directly on any website.

It’s always considered the best practice to keep your private key off the internet. There are rare cases where a private key is necessary to perform a specific task, like to claim tokens from a specific wallet. We feel that most of the time the compromising nature of exposing your key doesn’t make the task worth it. While there are software tools available for extracting individual private keys from phrases, remember that using your phrase anywhere online can compromise your wallet, and consider the risk involved before doing so.

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mewwalletios, mewwalletandroid, security, private key