If you ever lose access to your account, you will need to restore it using its mnemonic (seed) phrase or a JSON file. If you lose your Subwallet password, or you want to switch devices, you will need to restore all accounts that you had in the wallet.


In this article we'll show how to restore an account that was created in Subwallet or another ecosystem wallet using its mnemonic phrase or JSON file and password.


ℹ️ GOOD TO KNOW

If you have any questions about how to restore your account or run into any issues and require further assistance, feel free to ask our AI chatbot or contact us.

Alternatively, you can also read Subwallet's documentation or contact their team directly and receive specialiazed assistance from the team that developed the wallet.

You can contact Subwallet support either by joining their Discord server, on Telegram, or through email.


ℹ️ INFO

Subwallet is available as a mobile app for iOS and Android, as a browser extension, and as a web app. The UX and UI of all three platforms are pretty consistent.

In this and other articles, we provide instructions for the browser extension. If there are differences between the extension and the mobile app, we'll make sure to point them out or provide separate instructions.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

How to restore an account on a new Subwallet installation

‼️ IMPORTANT

Subwallet is a non-custodial wallet, which means that only you have access to your accounts. For this reason it is imperative that you keep your mnemonic phrase safe. Without it, it is impossible to restore your account if you ever lose access to it.

If this is the first time you're using Subwallet, or you have installed it anew, follow these instructions to restore your account.


1. After installing Subwallet, open it and choose "Import an account"


2. On the next screen, select "Import from seed phrase"



3. Select the account type(s) you want to enable for this account. For more information on account types, check this article.



4. After that you will need to create a password for your wallet.


⛔️ READ THIS FIRST!

This password unlocks the wallet and gives full access to all your accounts in it on the specific device.

For this reason make sure it's strong and unique and you are the only one that knows it.

Using a password manager to generate and store this password is highly recommended!



5. After creating your password, you will be asked to enter your mnemonic phrase words in the correct order.


ℹ️ GOOD TO KNOW

If you misspell a word, the frame around it will turn red to notify you of this. 

If the mnemonic phrase you entered is not valid (possibly because the words are not in the correct order), a message will appear when you click "Import account".



You can also select the proper length of your mnemonic phrase, between 12 words and 24 words. In most cases you won't need to change the default value of 12 words. 


If your mnemonic phrase consists of 24 words, then it's likely it's for an account that was created in a cold storage wallet (like Ledger or Polkadot Vault). You should not restore such an account in a hot wallet, like Subwallet, and chances are a different account will be generated. 


Read this article on how to import your Ledger account and this article on how to import your Polkadot Vault account. 


6. Click "Import account" to restore your account and you'll be directed to the newly imported account's main page.

How to restore an account on an existing Subwallet installation

If you are already using Subwallet and have accounts in it, please follow these steps to restore another account in the wallet.


1. From any screen, click on "All accounts" at the top



2. At the bottom, select the import icon



3. Click on "Import from seed phrase"



4. Select the account types you want to enable for this account



5. Then enter your mnemonic phrase's words in the correct order. You can find more details about this screen on step 5 in the above section.


6. Click "Import account" to restore your account and you'll be directed to the newly imported account's main page.

How to restore from a JSON file

Alternatively to the mnemonic phrase, you can restore from a JSON file generated from the Polkadot extension or Polkadot-JS UI, or another ecosystem extension. 


This is useful if you have lost the mnemonic phrase for your account but still have access to it and remember its password, or if you want to migrate all your accounts from the Polkadot extension to Subwallet.


If this is a new installation of Subwallet, please follow steps 1 and 4 in the first section on how to access the "Import account" screen and set your wallet password.


Otherwise, please follow these steps:


1. From any screen, click on "All accounts" at the top



2. At the bottom, select the import icon



3. In the new screen, select "Import from Polkadot.{js}"



4. A new tab will open up in your browser. You can either drag and drop the JSON file in the frame or click on it to browse for it.



5. Once you've added the file you will see the account's address and the name you had given it.



5a. If you added a batch export file, a file exported from the Polkadot extension containing all the accounts in the extension, you will see the name of the file and the number of accounts that will be imported. 



Click on that button to review the accounts that will be imported.



ℹ️ GOOD TO KNOW

You cannot choose which accounts to import in this way. All accounts in the batch file will be imported.


6. Then fill out the password and click "Import by JSON file". 


‼️ IMPORTANT

If you are importing a single account, the password you need to fill out is the account's password.

If you are importing through a batch file, the password needed is the password you set when you created the file, which may or may not be different from the passwords of the individual accounts in the file.


If you imported a single account, your account is now added to Subwallet and you can close the tab!


If you imported a batch JSON file, there are two more steps to complete the process:


7. You will be presented with the following screen to apply your wallet (master) password to the account(s) imported. Click "Apply master password now" to proceed.



8. In the following screens (one for each account you imported) you will see each account's details and you'll need to enter each account's password. This is the password of each, separate account, not the password for the batch JSON file. 


Add the account's password and click "Next" to move on to the next account until you've gone through all the imported accounts.


After that, all accounts will have been imported, and you can close the tab!


How to restore a derived account

If you had previously derived accounts from another account, in order to restore them from the mnemonic phrase, you will need to restore the parent account first, following the instructions above.


Derived accounts are generated deterministically and sequentially, meaning that from the same parent account, the same derived accounts will always be generated and in the same order. So, all you need to do to restore them is to derive accounts from the parent account you restored and the same derived accounts as before will be generated. 


You will need to derive as many accounts as you had previously generated. Even if you want to restore only a specific account, you will need to derive all its previous accounts first. If, for example, you had derived two accounts but you only want to restore the second one, you will need to derive two accounts in order to get the one you are looking for. Afterward, you can remove any accounts you don't need.


ℹ️ GOOD TO KNOW

Derived accounts restored with a JSON file, either individually or as part of a batch file, are restored directly without need of the parent account.

But you should always have access to the mnemonic phrase of the parent account, as with all accounts.