Passphrase File

📋 Overview

Mode 8 is the simplest passphrase recovery mode: you provide the complete, correct seed phrase and a file of passphrase candidates. wrecover tests each passphrase candidate from the file against the seed phrase and target address.

Use this mode when you know your seed phrase exactly but have forgotten the BIP39 passphrase, and have a list of likely passphrases you want to test.

⚠️ CPU only — no GPU support

This mode runs on CPU only (both Free and Pro versions). If -gpu is passed, wrecover falls back to CPU and logs an info message.

📄 Passphrase File Format

Plain text file, one passphrase candidate per line (.txt extension for new search). A .bin binary index is generated automatically. On resume (-wi), supply the .bin path.

# passphrases.txt

MyPassphrase

password123

Bitcoin2009!

Satoshi

hodl

summer2024

💡 Empty passphrase

To test no passphrase (empty string), add a blank line to the file. The blank line is preserved and treated as an empty passphrase candidate.

🚀 Commands

New search

wrecover -m 8 -mf "word1 word2 word3 word4 word5 word6 word7 word8 word9 word10 word11 word12" -pps passphrases.txt -addr "1A1zP1eP5QGefi2DMPTfTL5SLmv7DivfNa" -wlang en -ws -wf recovery.wrec -wp "this workfile password"

Resume (provide .bin passphrase file)

wrecover -wi -wf recovery.wrec -wp "this workfile password" -pps passphrases.bin

📖 Parameter Reference

Option	Description	Required
`-m 8`	Select Mode 8	Yes
`-mf "<full mnemonic>"`	Complete, correct seed phrase (all words known)	Yes
`-pps <file.txt\|.bin>`	Passphrase candidate file (.txt new, .bin resume)	Yes
`-addr <address>`	Target blockchain address	Yes
`-wlang <code>`	BIP39 wordlist language	Yes
`-ws`	New search	Yes*
`-wi`	Resume from work file	Yes*
`-wf <file.wrec>`	Work file path	Yes
`-dpath <path>`	Override derivation path	No
`-t <N>`	CPU threads (Free: max 10; Pro: unlimited)	No
`-wp <password>`	Encrypt work file	No
`-save-only`	Create work file only	No

* Use either -ws (new search) or -wi (resume) — not both.

⚠️ No GPU support

-gpu, -startp, and -endp are not supported in Mode 8.

🌎 Languages & Address Types

Languages (`-wlang`)

Code	Language
`en`	English
`es`	Spanish
`fr`	French
`it`	Italian

Address types (auto-detected)

Address format	Type	Default derivation path
Starts with `1`	Bitcoin Legacy (P2PKH)	`m/44'/0'/0'/0`
Starts with `3`	Bitcoin SegWit P2SH	`m/49'/0'/0'/0`
Starts with `bc1q`	Bitcoin Native SegWit	`m/84'/0'/0'/0`
Starts with `0x`	Ethereum	`m/44'/60'/0'/0`

⚡ Performance

Passphrases	CPU 1 thread	CPU 8 threads
10	<0.1 sec	Instant
1,000	~1 sec	<0.2 sec
100,000	~1.5 min	~12 sec
1,000,000	~14 min	~2 min

💡 Large lists

For very large passphrase lists (millions of entries), consider Mode 2 (brute-force) or Mode 3 (mask) if the search space can be described by a pattern, as they are far more efficient than file-based approaches at scale.