Passphrase Recovery on Trezor Wallets

Recovering a Lost or Forgotten Passphrase on a Trezor Hardware Wallet

During late 2021, Trezor rolled out their hardware wallets: the Trezor One and the Trezor Model T. Both models came with the Passphrase feature automatically enabled. This Passphrase is sometimes referred to as the ’25th seed word’. The Passphrase feature enables an additional layer of security on top of the seed words and is requested by the Trezor every time access to the wallet is requested. So, if the seed words were stolen and the wallet recreated, the contents would still be secure as the thief would also require the Passphrase to gain access.

Trezor Passphrase Creation
The Passphrase is created when the Trezor wallet is initially set up, after the 12 or 24 seed words are generated. Unlike the seed words, which are created by the Trezor, the Passphrase is simple string of characters (eg. ‘Secret123’ etc) which are chosen by the user. What we are seeing is that new users of Trezor wallets are setting up the wallet and writing down the seed phrases, but are then confused by the request for a Passphrase which sometimes hasn’t been recorded. The next time the user opens the wallet, the Trezor prompts them for the Passphrase, which has either been forgotten because it wasn’t recorded or the user didn’t think that this function was enabled The result is the same, the Trezor will take the user to an empty wallet instead of the one where their funds are stored.

Recovery of Trezor Passphrase
Is it possible to recover cryptocurrency from a Trezor Wallet with a lost passphrase?
Fortunately, the answer is YES.