How to restore a Zcash wallet from your seed phrase

Quick steps

1. Install an Ironwood-ready wallet. Get Zodl, Zkool or another Ironwood-ready shielded wallet from its official source.
2. Choose restore. Tap Restore existing wallet (Zodl) or switch on Restore Account? (Zkool).
3. Enter your recovery phrase. Type every word in the original order, in private.
4. Add the birthday height. Enter the height you saved, or an estimate earlier than your first use. Later than the real height can hide funds.
5. Sync and check. Keep the app open until syncing finishes and confirm your balance and pools.

Lost phone, new phone, or a wallet app that stopped working: in every case your ZEC is safe as long as you have your recovery phrase. Restoring rebuilds the same keys on a new device. This guide covers the 2026 details that older guides miss, including the birthday height, Ironwood and retired wallets.

Before you start

• Your recovery phrase. Zodl and Zkool create 24 words. Zkool also accepts 12, 15, 18 and 21-word phrases from other wallets.
• Your birthday height, if you wrote it down. It is the block height when the wallet was created.
• Any passphrase or account number you set in the old wallet (rare, but some wallets offer it).
• A private place. Never restore on a shared computer or in front of a camera.

Never type your recovery phrase into a website. No real Zcash wallet restores in a browser tab. Pages titled "Zcash web wallet" that ask you to import a seed are phishing; one posing as Zodl was flagged on 8 August 2026. See Zcash scams.

Why the birthday height matters

Shielded wallets cannot ask a server "what is my balance?" without giving up privacy. Instead your device downloads compact blocks and checks every transaction with your keys. Starting from the birthday height skips all blocks from before your wallet existed, which can save a lot of time.

• If you do not know it, use an earlier height or date. Too early only makes syncing slower.
• Too late is the real danger: funds received before that height will not show up. Zkool says plainly that it will miss transactions before the birth height you give.

Restore in Zodl

1. On the first screen, tap Restore existing wallet.
2. Enter all 24 words in order. If the Next button stays greyed out, a word is probably misspelled or out of order.
3. Enter your birthday height, or tap Estimate block height and pick the year and month you first used the wallet.
4. Choose whether to use Tor while syncing (more private, slower).
5. Choose whether to keep the screen on while syncing.
6. Let it sync with the app open and the phone unlocked. Sync is done when the sync status disappears and your balance shows.

Source: Zodl support, checked October 2026. Since version 3.9.0 (7 August 2026), Zodl uses a new sync engine, Slipstream, which Zodl says greatly cuts restore time.

Restore in Zkool

1. In the Account Manager, tap + and give the account a name.
2. Switch on Restore Account?.
3. Paste or type your key: a seed phrase, or a viewing key, Sapling secret key, transparent xprv/xpub or private key.
4. Enter a birth height lower than the real one.
5. If needed, open Advanced Options for a passphrase or an account index (the first account is 0).
6. Press save. If Zkool offers to scan for extra transparent addresses, accept only if the old wallet rotated transparent addresses (Ledger and Exodus do). Then let it synchronise.

Restoring several accounts? Answer Cancel when Zkool asks to sync, add them all, then sync them together from the Account Manager.

Restoring into a different wallet

Most shielded wallets use the same standards for seed words (BIP 39) and shielded key derivation (ZIP 32), so a seed from one usually restores in another. Differences still exist:

Balance missing or wrong after restore?

• Still syncing. Wait until the sync indicator disappears. Old wallets can take a while.
• Birthday too late. Restore again with an earlier height.
• Different account. The funds may be in account 1 or 2 of the same seed. Zkool lets you set the account index.
• Orchard funds. If your balance was in the old Orchard pool, an Ironwood-ready wallet will show it but you must move it to Ironwood before spending normally. See Orchard to Ironwood migration.
• Sprout funds (zc addresses). Very old wallets may hold Sprout funds. The NU7 upgrade, planned for around 5 November 2026 at block 3,543,405, disables v4 transactions and is reported to make Sprout funds unspendable (crypto.news). If you think you hold any, act before activation.

After restoring

• Local data does not come back: contact names, a Zodl migration lock and app settings are stored on the old device only. Transactions and shielded memos sent to you are recovered from the chain.
• If you restored because a phone was stolen or the seed may have been seen, create a new wallet and move everything to it. A restored seed is only as safe as its past.
• Keep the app updated, especially before NU7. As of 24 October 2026 the upgrade was still planned, not activated.

Frequently asked questions