Monero (XMR) Wallet Recovery Service

Monero (XMR) doesn't follow BIP39 the way Bitcoin and Ethereum wallets do, and which seed you hold depends on the wallet that created it. Monero's own GUI and CLI write a 25-word seed; several widely used third-party wallets write shorter schemes of their own. A second piece - the restore height - decides how fast and how completely a wallet rescans, unless the seed already carries it.

What you are actually dealing with

• 25-word seed: the CryptoNote seed. 24 words plus a checksum word. It isn't interchangeable with BIP39 phrases.
• Optional passphrase: if one was set, the seed alone produces a different wallet. A wrong or missing passphrase silently gives an empty wallet.
• Restore height: the block height (or date) when the wallet was created. Without it, restore still works but rescans from the start of the chain - slow, not impossible.
• Private spend key: the seed encodes it. With the seed, the wallet restores; view-only keys only show balances.
• Wallets and their seed formats: Monero GUI and CLI write the 25-word seed. Feather and Cake Wallet create new wallets with a 16-word Polyseed, which carries the wallet's creation date inside the seed, so no separate restore height is needed; Cake Wallet can also create a 12-word BIP39 Monero seed. MyMonero uses its own 13-word scheme, which the official Monero wallet cannot restore directly. Count the words before assuming which format you have.

When professional recovery is the right call

• Several words are missing or unreadable - and unlike BIP39, the Monero checksum leaves less room for guessing. One or two uncertain words in the seed: the CryptoNote checksum can bound the search.
• The passphrase is forgotten: a missing or different passphrase produces a different wallet, so remembered fragments matter. Restore height is a separate check: a value set too early slows the scan, while a value set too late can omit earlier transactions and show an incomplete balance.
• A seed that restores an empty wallet: almost always the missing passphrase or a wrong restore height - a recoverable misunderstanding, not lost XMR. Verify the address or rescan correctly.
• A wallet file with a forgotten password: the seed is the backup; if only the file remains, password search applies to the file encryption.

What is impossible

• No usable seed, spend-key export or spend-capable wallet file remains: a public address or view-only wallet cannot replace that missing key material.
• Reversing a transaction.

Practical notes

• Never enter a Monero seed into a website; the privacy model makes mistakes permanent.
• Store the restore height (or first transaction date) with the seed.