So after doing a 'system restore' on my Ol' Faithful laptop, and reinstalling Chrome, my MMask extension was no longer there. Thankfully it's on mobile and I have the seed-phrase. The probs started when I attempted to reinstall MMask w the seed-phrase and same PW…now to my horror I have TWO MMask accounts (diff. Eth addresses) under the SAME seed-phrase and password. How is this even possible? I'd like to say the Eth address is the only thing differentiating the two accounts. But I can't think any further than that. Thx in advance.
[Ethereum] I have two Metamask accounts with the same password and seed phrase. How is this possible
browsersdappsmetamaskwallets
Related Solutions
You'll need your Mnemonic Phrase
Unfortunately, without your Mnemonic Phrase (or a backup of your private keys) there's no way to recover the accounts. So you'll need to get that phrase off your other computer at a convenient time.
Once you have the recovery phrase, you'll face another problem, how to enter it into the new MetaMask instance once it's initialised...
Resetting the vault.
Once you have initialised the MetaMask extension, there's no built-in way to reset the vault using your original seed phrase.
If you want to start from scratch, you'll need to uninstall the extension and reinstall it at which point it will ask you if you have your seed phrase available again.
This will however result in the new vault from being destroyed and replaced with the old one, which may or may not be desirable.
If you were using the Google Chrome browser in Windows 10, you should be able to find the location of the Vault by going to this folder location (you need to be able to see the hidden files):
C:\Users\USER_NAME\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Local Extension Settings\nkbihfbeogaeaoehlefnkodbefgpgknn
In that folder you'll see a file called 000003 (or something like that), open that file with a text editor or code editor software like Atom (https://atom.io/).
In the text editor search for the word "vault" and copy this part that looks like the one pasted below:
{"vault":"{\"data\":\"wwpXXtFCqZkYsWfeEwItZjJ0Cc7mRVjG47Dqh+ztL1PiCG6Izhg+zG0mM+H2ykyjz3X0RNhAE6IVsWFZamcZ47B4sVi4SvUxrMhARm5L3yHPxr3UsyGrOXmthyVMgEGmjwlmnFCNd2nMZ2o8/sRMra8FupurqevnBv57FiYpEEs7gPpFHv6587aL44MmKD8Snv4JLFqiqmlK82Waq5F+Iv9mw2sFVAL9mgZBSgFgbWdB3TsKVB2k\",\"iv\":\"rkUQlNcGTxBE0My7a/bCXw==\",\"salt\":\"HcKyNfGzaRALRQ0DlKgcIe5Uk30iI/M//oG6w8vX8Nk=\"}"}
Remove the two parts in bold. Now use the Search and Replace feature of the editor to change all the \" to "
You would now have something like this:
{"data":"wwpXXtFCqZkYsWfeEwItZjJ0Cc7mRVjG47Dqh+ztL1PiCG6Izhg+zG0mM+H2ykyjz3X0RNhAE6IVsWFZamcZ47B4sVi4SvUxrMhARm5L3yHPxr3UsyGrOXmthyVMgEGmjwlmnFCNd2nMZ2o8/sRMra8FupurqevnBv57FiYpEEs7gPpFHv6587aL44MmKD8Snv4JLFqiqmlK82Waq5F+Iv9mw2sFVAL9mgZBSgFgbWdB3TsKVB2k","iv":"rkUQlNcGTxBE0My7a/bCXw==","salt":"HcKyNfGzaRALRQ0DlKgcIe5Uk30iI/M//oG6w8vX8Nk="}
You can now go to the Vault Decryptor https://metamask.github.io/vault-decryptor/ and paste that in the textfield there, enter the password you set for the extension when you created your MetaMask wallet. You should be able to see your seed phrase and any manually imported private key below if you click the Decrypt button.
Best Answer
Metamask is an HD - Hierarchical Deterministic - wallet. In HD wallets you can derive multiple child keys from a single master key, which is represented by the seed phrase.
Each child key - a private key - represents a different child account, each with its own address.
What you're seeing is likely just the first two derived child addresses for your overall master key. If you want to use even more of the derived accounts, you can click the "Create Account" button in Metamask. Note that these accounts are always deterministically derived from your seed phrase, so your seed phrase is the only thing you need to keep safe (i.e. you don't need to save a bunch of different private keys).
For more on HD wallets, see: