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So, I've been using MetaMask to try app.compound.finance and everything went well. I've deposited a small sum and connected the app to the wallet. But a few weeks later I decided to deleted the chrome extension fearing any type of security threat as I am spending a lot of time in the internet.

But, to my surprise, deleting the extension and using the seed phrase to recover the account did not bring back the wallet I used for Compound Finance. I can still see that my address has the money I left there. But I just don't have access to this wallet anymore like I used to.

I've contacted MetaMask support e-mail for assistance over how to get access to the wallet back using my seed phrase. But they are taking a bit longer than expected to respond the emails. In other wallets, and other crypto projects, all you need is your seed phrase and you would be safe losing your password, your mobile deviced used for 2FA, and any other security resource. For this, I have only exported my seed phrase and not all the private keys for each wallet inside MetaMask.

But I was caught off guard with MetaMask. I thought having a seed phrase is everything I would need to get it back. Apparently it wasn't and I was looking for anyone who went through the same problem in order to figure out how they proceded.

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  • The seed phrase is enough for retrieving all the keys. Are you sure you have the correct seed phrase?
    – Sanjay S B
    Oct 20, 2019 at 4:24
  • I'm certain this is the seed phrase. But because I was not used to browser wallets I just didn't know how to properly handle them. So, I imagined that I could get all my addresses back using the seed regardless of what happened to my browser.
    – Matheus
    Oct 20, 2019 at 22:16
  • If your seed is correct you could also import it on a completely different device.
    – Niklas Feurstein
    Oct 21, 2019 at 13:17
  • I managed to recover the funds. I had really created two wallets and luckily both seed phrases were close to each other in my storage.
    – Matheus
    Oct 21, 2019 at 22:44

2 Answers 2

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The seed phrase definitely is enough to recover your account.

When installing MetaMask it prompts you to input a seed phrase or generate a new account.

Then choose the seed phrase and copy it.

As you mentioned it isn't working for you.

  1. Make sure you spelled everything correctly.
  2. The mnemonic phrase is 12 words. Are you sure you got all of them right?

You are in the Blockchain space everyone is reliable for his passwords himself. MetaMask can't do anything about it. Either you can fix it yourself or you "loose" all your funds. That's just how it is.

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    Thanks for reaching out but I really couldn't get access to the wallet that I had previously. I'm certain this is the same seed that I exported. The wallet that I used to transfer to Compound is just not there for me to control any more.
    – Matheus
    Oct 20, 2019 at 22:15
  • Luckily I found another seed phrase. It was close to where I stored the first one. Apparently everything is fine and I recovered funds.
    – Matheus
    Oct 21, 2019 at 22:43
  • Great to hear that you could solve your problem :D
    – Niklas Feurstein
    Oct 22, 2019 at 11:28
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You can extract your keys by using Ian Coleman's Recovery Tool. It runs locally in your browser and is fully open source. There is no sensitive information sent across the internet. If you want to be extra secure, it is strongly recommended to save the HTML file and run it on an airgapped offline device.

  1. Open https://iancoleman.io/bip39/. It is strongly recommended that you save the HTML file and run it on an offline device.

  2. Enter your recovery phrase into the " BIP39 mnemonic" box.

  3. If you have used an extra BIP39 Passphrase, you should enter it in the "BIP39 Passphrase" box. Otherwise, leave it empty. That is not your app withdraw password.

  4. Select the coin you want to view/export from the 'Coin' dropdown list.

  5. Scroll down to the 'Derived Addresses' section. Find your address and copy the private key that corresponds to it. If you are on a mobile device, you will need to scroll all the way to the right to see the corresponding private key.

(info form https://coinomi.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/articles/29000009717-what-is-the-recovery-tool-and-how-do-i-export-my-private-keys-)

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  • This should be the preferred answer. Provides a really easy and client-side library for producing private keys from a mnemonic.
    – Dimitris Sfounis
    Jul 16, 2021 at 10:30

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