Issue description

When you recover a previously used Polymesh account with your seed phrase, you might end up generating a different account than the account you were expecting.

This article explains the steps you can do to recover the correct account.

1. Confirm your recovery phrase

As the first step, you should confirm you have the correct recovery phrase. Also ensure that you have Mainnet selected in the Polymesh Wallet when you are trying to recover your account:

2. Look for a JSON file on your PC

The recovery phrase and the JSON file are the only two ways to back up and restore your account.
You might have saved this JSON file of your account to your computer from your wallet. 
By default, the name of the file is your Polymesh Account (on mainnet, accounts start with 2; on testnet, accounts start with 5).

3. Restore your Polymesh Account through the Polymesh App

Some accounts created a long time ago may have been generated with a different keypair crypto type. Follow the steps below to retrieve your originally created account.

Step 1. - Enable local storage in the Polymesh App

1. Open the Settings page of the Polymesh App.
2. Scroll down to the account options > in-browser account creation and select Allow local in-browser account storage then click on Save:
   
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Step 2. - Recover the old Polymesh Account

1. Go to the Accounts page on the Polymesh App then click on +Account to generate a new account:
   
2. A popup window will appear where you can see an account at the top, a mnemonic seed field and some advanced creation options.
   • Delete the existing seed phrase, then enter your seed phrase to the mnemonic seed field.
   • Click on the Advanced creation options to change the keypair crypto type to something else. Once you switch the keypair, the account at the top changes as well.
   • If your seed phrase is correct, you should see your account at the top of the page by selecting one of these keypairs.
   • Once it's done click on I have saved my mnemonic seed safely then click on Next.
     
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3. Add a name and a password for this account then click on Next.
   
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4. A confirmation window appears, click on Save to save the JSON file to your computer. A popup window might appear in your browser to allow it.
5. Now you should see your account in the Accounts menu and a JSON backup file saved on your computer. From now on, you can use your account in the Polymesh App or export it to another wallets like to Polymesh Wallet, Subwallet, Polkadot Wallet and so on. To do this, head over to the next step.
    
   
   Note: If the steps above doesn't give you your correct mainnet address then you most likely do not have the correct seed phrase for the wallet you previously used.

Step 4 - Import account to the Polymesh Wallet

1. Open your Polymesh Wallet and click on +Add key then Import account from JSON file.
   
2. Import the JSON file you've just saved with the JSON and wallet password. Once it's done you should see your Polymesh Account restored in your wallet.
   
   
   
   
3. Now you should see your account in the Polymesh Wallet.

As for cleaning up after this process, you may want to delete this account from the Polymesh app if you don't want to use it anymore then deny in-browser account creation from the Settings menu.

Learn more

How to recover a Polymesh account in a Polymesh wallet extension