The wallets people use
Addresses starting bc1q (native SegWit) and bc1p (Taproot), and the older 1 and 3 kinds. Phrases in BIP39, which nearly every wallet uses, and Electrum's own.
[ pixellabs presents ]
seedrecovery
The words, back in the right order.
You wrote down your Bitcoin seed phrase, but the order got lost. Seed Recovery tries every order of the words against an address from the wallet until one matches, on your Mac alone. Lock the words you’re sure of and it takes seconds.
download · MacFree. macOS 14 or later, Apple silicon or Intel. See installing, below.
01
An address
Any address the wallet received money at. The first one it ever gave you is found quickest.
02
Your words
Type them in, in whatever order you have them, and lock the ones you're sure are in the right place.
03
Search
It tries every order of the rest against the address, and stops the moment one matches.
[ what it does ]
What you remember counts
Lock the words you're sure of and only the rest swap places. Each locked word cuts the search sharply: four free words is 24 orders.
A word you can't remember
Enter it as ? and every word in the list is tried there. With more than one or two, it says how long that would take before you start.
Fast
On a 12-core Apple silicon Mac, about 126,000 orders a second for bc1q and 100,000 for bc1p. All twelve words free to move takes about an hour and a quarter.
Nothing leaves the Mac
The words are never saved, and the search runs on this Mac alone. The only connection it ever makes is a once-a-day check for updates, and only if you say yes when it asks.
Pause, resume, passphrase
An optional BIP39 passphrase, how many receiving and change addresses to check, and a search you can pause and pick up again.
[ what it can't do ]
It can't find missing words
It puts the words you have in order. One or two unknown words is a long search; more than that is longer than anyone can wait.
It needs a real address
A phrase can only be confirmed against an address the wallet actually used, and a wrong address means nothing will match.
It isn't a wallet
It finds the phrase and shows it. Moving your coins is done in your wallet, with the phrase it found.
[ installing ]
The first time only, macOS needs telling that Seed Recovery is allowed.
01
Drag it to Applications
Open SeedRecovery.dmg and drag Seed Recovery onto the Applications folder beside it.
02
Open it once, and say Done
Double-click Seed Recovery in Applications. macOS says it can't check it for malicious software, because it isn't signed with a paid Apple certificate. Choose Done, not Move to Bin.
03
Allow it in System Settings
System Settings → Privacy & Security, scroll down to Security, and click Open Anyway beside Seed Recovery. Confirm with Touch ID or your password, then Open.
Or, if you're happy in the Terminal, this does steps 2 and 3 in one go:
xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine "/Applications/Seed Recovery.app"
[ questions ]
Is it safe to type my seed phrase into it?
It's built so it can be: the words stay in memory only while it runs, are never written to disk, and nothing is sent anywhere. For the most caution, turn Wi-Fi off before you type them, and move the coins to a fresh wallet once you have the phrase back.
How long will it take?
With most words locked in place, seconds. With all twelve free to move, about an hour and a quarter on a recent Apple silicon Mac. With unknown words it can take far longer, and it says so before you start.
Does it cost anything?
No. It's free, with no account and nothing to buy.
How do I uninstall it?
Drag Seed Recovery from Applications to the Bin. It keeps no phrases, and only its window and update settings are left in ~/Library/Preferences/dev.pixel-labs.seedrecovery.plist.
Have it.
Free, for the moment you need it most.