Lost Private Key

Information for what to do if you lose your Private key.

Brittany avatar
Written by Brittany
Updated over a week ago

MyEtherWallet does not manage accounts with information such as passwords, private keys, or emails. In order to ensure your security and privacy, no sensitive data is ever saved, stored, or transmitted when you use MyEtherWallet. We only have access to the information that is publicly available on the blockchain. We do not have servers and we do not hold your assets.

Only users themselves can access and control their funds – this is the purpose of decentralized networks. Your funds are stored on the Ethereum blockchain itself, and we are simply an interface that allows you to easily interact with them. Passwords and private keys are in the users’ hands and are the users’ responsibility.

Unfortunately, this means we cannot:

  • Recover your private key

  • Access your account

  • Recover or reset your password

  • Reverse or cancel transactions

  • Recover your account

  • Send your ETH or Tokens from one address to another

There may be a chance that you saved your Keystore/JSON file without realizing it. We recommend:

  • Do a full search of your computer for ‘UTC–’ and see if the file shows up.

  • Do a full search of your computer for your address, without the 0x at the beginning.

  • If you know when you created it, look through all files during that time period for any documents or screenshots.

  • Generate a new wallet via our interface and take a look at the different options you may have downloaded or saved. Sometimes backtracking can help jog your memory.

In the future, we strongly recommend you use our fully-fledged mobile app MEW wallet, or purchase a hardware wallet for higher security. If you must use a private key, print out a paper version of your wallet, and keep it in multiple physical locations.

You can read more about how to safely back up your wallet.


~ If you haven't already, feel free to check us out on Twitter and Reddit ~

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