‼️ IMPORTANT

Polkadot-JS UI is a web wallet meant for power users and developers. For everyday use, there are several user-friendly wallets funded by the Polkadot Treasury that support a plethora of features and platforms. Discover them on Polkadot's homepage.


Sometimes you want to empty an account removing all the funds from it. For this case, you must configure the transaction indicating this intention. The account will be deactivated, and all your funds will be sent to the indicated account. Keep reading to learn how to do it.

If you want to send your total balance out of your account, be aware that your account will then be deactivated. Only accounts with a balance higher than the Existential Deposit of 1 DOT are active on the Polkadot network. You can learn more about this here.


ℹ️ INFO

Not all wallets that support DOT have the technical capability to allow you to send out the existential deposit. Below you will learn how to do this in the Polkadot-JS UI.

If your current wallet does not have this functionality, you can export your private key from there and import it to Polkadot-JS UI or contact the support of your wallet to see if there's a way to deactivate your account. Once imported, you can proceed as below. Note that exposing your private keys on a website comes with a security risk, therefore you should only do this if you do not plan on reactivating this account in the future.


TABLE OF CONTENTS


Send all of your funds


To send all of your funds and reap the account, you should follow the steps below:


1. On the "send funds" screen, first disable the "keep alive" check.


2. This will make a new option appear below: "Transfer the full account balance, reap the sender." 


3. When you switch that option on and make the transfer, the transaction costs will automatically be deducted from the total amount. Also, your account will be reaped, as it will fall below the Existential Deposit amount.


You can reactivate it anytime by depositing a minimum of 1 DOT.



Missing "transfer the full account balance, reap the sender" option


If you do not see this option, your account either holds exactly 1 DOT or is very close to it.


To fix this, send a small amount of DOT to this account to increase the transferrable balance so that the transaction fee can be deducted without the transferrable balance dropping below 1 DOT. Transaction fees are very low on Polkadot, so increasing the balance to even 1.02 DOT should be sufficient, but to be safe, it's recommended that you have at least 1.1 DOT. You will then see the "Reap the sender" option appear, and you can send your entire balance out.


Another possibility is that your account has other types of balances like locked or reserved. In that case, the account can't be reaped, so you must manually enter the amount you want to send. You can read about different types of balances here. Also, the transferable balance can be below 1 DOT, but if it's too low, the UI won't let you send out funds.


If you are more of a visual learner, check this video on the topic: