Split backups
A single paper backup can be a single point of failure: someone who obtains an unprotected recovery phrase may gain access, and losing your only usable backup can prevent recovery. A split backup spreads that risk across several places.
What a split backup is
Section titled “What a split backup is”Smartable divides your wallet’s recovery phrase into shares using Shamir secret sharing as specified by SLIP-39. A set number of shares brings the phrase back. Fewer than that reveal nothing about it — not part of the phrase, not a hint of it.
The two arrangements
Section titled “The two arrangements”| 2-of-3 | 3-of-5 | |
|---|---|---|
| Shares you set up | 3 | 5 |
| Shares needed to restore | any 2 | any 3 |
| Places you can lose and still restore | any 1 | any 2 |
2-of-3 is the one the app recommends: it survives losing any one place and is simpler to keep up. 3-of-5 survives losing any two, but asks you to set up and look after five places.
Where shares can go
Section titled “Where shares can go”- This phone. One share always stays on the device. It needs no account and no network, but it is lost with the phone, so it is never enough on its own.
- A cloud storage account of your own. The share is stored in your account. The app lists the services it supports.
- Paper. You write the share’s words down and type them back once to confirm them. The phone keeps only a note of which backup and which share it was — never the words.
Two folders in one cloud account are one place, not two. Choose places that would fail for different reasons.
The wallet password
Section titled “The wallet password”Shares kept on the phone and in cloud accounts are sealed with the wallet password you had when you made the backup. A paper share is not: it is the share’s own words, so keep it as carefully as you would a recovery phrase. On its own it reveals nothing, but it counts towards the number needed.
Restoring needs that password. There is at most one paper share in a backup, so any set large enough to restore includes a sealed one. Changing your wallet password later does not reseal shares you already made: they still open only with the old one.
The password adds protection, but it is not a substitute for keeping shares secure. Use a strong, unique password. If you lose the required password, the split backup cannot restore your wallet.
What a restore brings back
Section titled “What a restore brings back”The backup restores the wallet’s recovery phrase — the same words, so the accounts and addresses derived from them come back. It is not a backup of every item stored in the app. These are not part of the phrase and have to be added again:
- hardware-wallet accounts — their keys were never in Smartable;
- private keys you imported on their own;
- watch-only addresses;
- lists and settings kept on the phone: the address book, templates, hidden assets and your network connections.
The Help Center’s Moving to a new phone has the full list.
Restoring in other wallets
Section titled “Restoring in other wallets”A Smartable split backup is meant to be restored in Smartable Wallet. It uses SLIP-39’s way of splitting a secret, but:
- the shares carry your BIP-39 recovery phrase, not a SLIP-39 master secret. Wallets that create their own SLIP-39 backups, such as some hardware wallets, derive keys from the shared secret differently, so restoring Smartable shares there would not give you this wallet;
- shares on the phone and in cloud accounts are sealed in Smartable’s own format.
We have not tested restoring Smartable shares in any other wallet, and do not claim that it works.
Checking and restoring
Section titled “Checking and restoring”- Check: Settings → Backup & recovery → Split backup shows how many of the needed shares are in place and whether the backup is complete. Look again after you change phones or cloud accounts.
- Restore: on the new phone, choose Restore a split backup, supply the shares — sign in to the cloud accounts that hold them and type any share you wrote down — then enter the password.