I lost my account secret! What can I do?

Background

On the XRP Ledger, a private key is called an account secret.

An account secret can come in various forms:

• Secret Numbers: If your XRP Ledger account was created using Xumm, you would have received a set of secret numbers. (8 rows, A-H, each with 6 digits)
• Family Seed: A 29 character string of numbers and letters starting with the letter "s".
• Mnemonic: A set of 12, 16 or 24 words chosen from this list. BIP 39 list

Each account on the XRPL will have its own account secret and in order to access an XRP Ledger account, you need to know the correct account secret.

As well, every account secret maps to exactly one r-address. The same account secret always results in the same r-address so, for example, if you have 10 XRPL accounts, you will have 10 different account secrets.

How can I view my account secret?

Xumm does not display account secrets.

If your XRP Ledger account was created using Xumm, you only see the secret numbers once, when the account is created. After that, there is no way to access, view or export them.

Please review this article for more information:

Why do I need to know my account secret?

• If you lose or damage your phone, you need the secret numbers to access your XRPL account.
• If you lose or forget your signing password, the secret numbers are required to reset it.
• If you lose or forget your passcode, you need the secret numbers to create a new one.
• If you get a new phone, you need the secret numbers to access your XRPL account.
• If you want to install a copy of Xumm on another device and access your account, you need your secret numbers.

I used Xumm to create my XRPL account. How do I recover my secret numbers?

Xumm does not have option to display or recover your secret numbers. It was designed like this just in case your device was ever lost, stolen or hacked.

Consider this, your phone is acquired by a criminal. They somehow guess your passcode, access Xumm, then they display your secret numbers, write them down and return your phone to you. You have no idea that your account has been compromised yet the criminal now has complete access to your funds with the secret numbers. They can access your XRPL account from anywhere, at any time with your secret numbers and you had no way of knowing they were stolen.

For this reason, the secret numbers are only displayed once, when an account is created.

We are planning to include a recovery feature in Xumm Pro in the near future.

For more information about this, please review this article:

• How to subscribe to Xumm Pro Beta 🎉

I have gone through KYC. I can send you proof that it is my account, why can't Xumm do something?

Xumm is a un-hosted wallet and the XRPL is a decentralized blockchain. This means that there is no central place where all account secrets are stored and there is no central authority to verify account ownership. 

Xumm does not gather or store personal information about you or your accounts and there is no way to connect an XRPL account and an identity using only information from the XRPL.

Only the account holder (that's you) sees the secret numbers. You are the only person who knows them. 

Do I have any options?

That depends if you still have full access to your account on your phone. If you do, you have a couple of options.

1) Create a new XRP Ledger account and send your funds to your newly created account.

2) Rekey your account to another XRPL account

1) I want to create a new account.

This video explains how to create a new account on the XRP Ledger.

• How to create a new XRP Ledger account using XUMM

Once the new account has been activated, create the appropriate Trust Lines to match the ones in the existing account. That can be done here:

• XRPL Services

At this point use the Send button on the main screen of Xumm to send your assets from your existing account to the new account.

Once all assets are successfully moved to the new account, delete the old account by following these instructions:

• How to delete your XRP Ledger account

2) I want to rekey my account instead.

Re-keying an account allows keeping an existing account by configuring a second XRPL account to sign transactions for it.

This article explains how to do this:

• How to add a regular key / rekey your XRP Ledger account

This avoids the requirement of having to re-create your Trust Lines or move your funds between accounts.

The new account simply signs transactions for the existing account.

Note: As mentioned previously, you must have full access to your account in order to do this.

Are you sure that there is nothing else that can be done?

We truly understand how disheartening it can be to lose access to your XRPL account, which is why we deliberately added several warnings in Xumm during the account creation process to make sure you understood the importance of the secret numbers. If there was an easy way to access the secret numbers, it would create a weak point in Xumm's security. 

Additional reading

• Safer savings: Introducing the XUMM Tangem Card!

Notes

We understand that you might have additional questions regarding this procedure so you are welcome to contact us any time via the Xumm Support xApp in Xumm or you can simply scan this QR code with Xumm and be directed there automatically.