What is a Recovery Phrase?
A recovery phrase, or sometimes called a "seed phrase," is a sequence of words generated by your digital wallet that allows you to access the cryptocurrencies tied to that wallet.
Typically, these phrases consist of either 12 or 24 words, which are produced randomly by the wallet. The specific order in which these words are noted down is of prime importance. Trust Wallet, for instance, employs a 12-word recovery phrase.
Please remember: The sequence of the words is crucial! The ordering of these words is key while restoring your wallet. If any word is out of order, you'll end up accessing a different wallet!
The Terms of Usage
As part of the wallet creation process, you'll be prompted to back up your wallet. This step is essential to ensure that you can regain access to your wallet should the app be unintentionally deleted or if your device is lost. Also, there could be times when troubleshooting may mandate reinstallation of the wallet. In such scenarios, a backup proves crucial.
Please note: We highly advise that you back up your wallet using both cloud services and traditional methods like manually jotting down the recovery phrase. Please also consider making multiple backup copies. There's no such thing as "too many backups" when it comes to ensuring the ability to recover your wallet at any time!
Upon clicking Back-up manually, you will be asked to read and understand the importance of your recovery phrase.
Beyond this point, the responsibility of safeguarding your recovery phrase lies purely in your hands. As reiterated from the first reminder, we do not hold a copy of your phrase on our side! And importantly, please pay attention to the warning that appears at the bottom of the screen where your recovery phrase is displayed:
*As a security measure, the screenshot functionality is disabled on this page, therefore any attempt to capture a screenshot will only result in a black screen along with a 'copy to clipboard' warning. This is why we recommend manually writing down your recovery phrase.
What happens if I fail to back-up my recovery phrase or lose it?
LET’S REVIEW!
Trust Wallet is a fully decentralized non-custodial wallet. This means that you have complete access over your cryptocurrencies but are also solely responsible for their security.
All of your cryptocurrency balance(s) are encrypted within the “12-Word” Recovery Phrase. The recovery phrase is the master key for all your assets. Meaning, all private keys are derived from that 12-Word Recovery Phrase.
So what happens then when you lose your recovery phrase or forget to secure a backup?
If you lose the Recovery Phrase, you lose access to your wallet.
Keep in mind that in the event your phone is broken, stolen, lost or the app is deleted accidentally, Trust Wallet never has access to your funds or the associated 12-Word Recovery Phrase. We do not store any of your personal information on our servers and thus can’t recover your funds if you lose your 12-Word recovery phrase.
There is no other way to recover a lost Recovery Phrase.
So as much as possible, do a Backup!!!!!!!
Pro Tip!
Before you start using a wallet, try to recover it first. This will ensure that you are able to use the Recovery phrases to reimport a wallet.
Not Your Keys, Not Your Crypto
The slogan actually means If you don’t own the private keys of the wallet address where your cryptocurrencies are located then, in essence, you don’t own the crypto stored in that wallet.
The recovery phrase will only be associated to just a single wallet.