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When we first create a MetaMask wallet, it has a seed phrase and there is only one wallet address.

By pressing Add Account in MetaMask, however, we can also create additional wallet addresses belonging to the same seed phrase as the first.

If I have to recover this same MetaMask set-up on a new computer using its seed phrase, only the first wallet generated will appear at first I think, and the rest are hidden for some reason. How to fully recover all secondary accounts/wallets that were added after the first?

EDIT: This is not a question about how to re-import the (invisible) ERC-20 tokens that are in a wallet. It's a question about how to recover all wallet addresses belonging to a seed phrase

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  • Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.
    – eth ♦
    Aug 10, 2021 at 9:15

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This official Metamask page explains that you need to press "create account" as if you were creating a new account 2, and the resulting account will actually be your existing account 2. Weird, but that's how it is. Also, there seems to be no way to automatically import all the tokens that were there in your old wallet install. So, unless you remember what tokens you had, they're as good as gone, this is such a big flaw! Thankfully, my old wallet install is still there on my old computer, and I can still make a note of which tokens I need to import on the new install.

A way to find out which tokens are there in your account is to click the account explorer which will open something like Etherscan.com or BSCscan.com and show you all your transactions. The tokens can be found in the other tab on this site. The best site IMO to quickly add tokens to Metamask is CoinMarketCap, it has a nice button next to the token address that says "add to Metamask".

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    >> So, unless you remember what tokens you had, they're as good as gone<< Simply not true. Although you might have to add the token name / contract address the tokens arent "gone" they are still in your wallet. Check etherscan or bscscan and you will see them.
    – bobster
    Nov 3, 2021 at 11:38
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    As @bobster says above, the tokens aren't gone. Metamask is just one of many tools (e.g. wallets) that given your private key (or equivalently, recovery phrase) can read the information (from supported blockchains) associated with that account. You can always use the same recovery key to add your account to a more feature-rich wallet if you want. You can even use both wallets simultaneously. It's like how you can use chrome or firefox to load a website -- they are just reading information stored online and presenting it to you.
    – mathandy
    Nov 27, 2021 at 23:42
  • The question has nothing to do with importing ERC-20 Tokens that were in the wallet. the question is: How to recover a seed phrase as well as all sub-wallets created under that seed phrase.
    – user610620
    Mar 22, 2022 at 8:31

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