If you need to recover access to your Bitkey wallet, the right recovery method depends on what changed or what you lost.
Use this guide to choose the recovery option that matches your situation, including losing your phone, cloud backup, or Bitkey hardware device. You’ll also learn about tools that help keep your recovery setup healthy and prepare you for unexpected situations, including if Bitkey or Block is no longer available.
Recovery Methods
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Cloud recovery
Cloud Recovery restores access to your existing wallet using your encrypted App Key backup stored in the cloud
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Delay + Notify
Delay + Notify securely creates a new wallet with a new set of keys when one of your existing keys is permanently lost.
When to use each recovery method
| If this happens... | Use this method | What happens |
| You lose or replace your phone, but still have your hardware and cloud access | Cloud recovery | Your Bitkey hardware device decrypts your App Key backup from the cloud |
| You lose or replace your phone, and don’t have a cloud backup | Delay + Notify | A new App Key is created using your Hardware Key |
| You lose or replace your hardware device, but still have your phone | Delay + Notify | A new Hardware Key is created using your App Key |
| You lose or replace both your phone and Bitkey hardware device at the same time, but previously set up a Recovery Contact |
Cloud recovery (with help from your Recovery Contact) & Delay + Notify |
Your Recovery Contact helps decrypt your App Key backup so you can restore your wallet, then Delay + Notify is used to replace your lost Hardware Key |
Supporting tools
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Cloud Health Check
Cloud Health Check monitors your encrypted backups and helps ensure they remain accessible in your cloud account.
🔎 Note: Cloud Health Check is not a recovery method.
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Recovery Contacts
Recovery Contacts help you recover access to your wallet if you lose both your phone and your Bitkey hardware device at the same time and previously set up a Recovery Contact.
To learn more about how Bitkey recovery works:
👉 Read the Bitkey recovery blog post
👉 Download the Bitkey recovery paper