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I am very shocked. After a crash on my computer, I lost my Seed Words file to access my MetaMask account. However, I found a Keystore file (UTC or json file), but when I import it into MetaMask I can not find my Ethereum. I'll get another ETH adress and there is no ETH in my wallet.. How is this possible? And how do I get back into my old account without Seed Words, but with UTC keystore file? If this succeeds, it will make me very happy!

Kind regards,

Koen

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There is no way to retrieve your accounts without mnemonic/seed words. Your account is all lost. Now you will have to create a fresh MetaMask account. Mnemonic words are used to retrieve your account, public key, and private key. This is a unidirectional process. You can't do the vice-versa.

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  • This is not completely true: depending upon if you can recover the wallet "vault" file directly. If you remember the wallet lock password, you can recover it with the raw vault data. – robertdavid Feb 6 '19 at 14:12
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There is unfortunately nothing you can do to recover your wallet at this point,
The seed phrase is the only way to restore your account.

https://metamask.helpscoutdocs.com/article/58-metamask-basics

The Seed Words for accounts is the primary way to back up multiple accounts, Keystores are for individual accounts.

https://kb.myetherwallet.com/private-keys-passwords/difference-beween-private-key-and-keystore-file.html

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  • The Seed Words for accounts is the primary way to back up multiple accounts, keystores are for individual accounts, kb.myetherwallet.com/private-keys-passwords/… – Ishwar Chandra Jul 31 '18 at 11:11
  • Aaaai.. That sucks. And MetaMask can't do anything? So the ETH is gone? – Koen Jul 31 '18 at 11:16
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    If you had your seed words stored in a text file on your hard disk (which is generally a bad idea, but it sounds like you might have), then it's conceivable that you could use specialist recovery tools to find it. Otherwise, your seed is your account. – James_pic Jul 31 '18 at 11:37
  • If you have seed words you can restore multiple accounts and with the keystore or privatekey you can restore individual account, If anything happens to your data (MetaMask installation, hard-disk, whole machine), then your account cannot be restored without a backup of the Seed Phrase. – Ishwar Chandra Jul 31 '18 at 11:52

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