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Installing BTCRecover

There are a few basic steps to installing BTCRecover.

  1. Download and unzip the BTCRecover script

  2. Download and install Python3

  3. Install required packages via Python PIP

  4. (Optional) Install PyOpenCL module for GPU Acceleration

  5. Test your installation (Optional, but a good idea)

These steps are covered in more detail below. If you prefer a video walkthrough, can be found on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/8q65eqpf4gE

Note: Depending on your operating system and python environment, you may need to replace the python command with python3. (By default, the command to use will be python in Windows and python3 in Linux) Most non-technical users are on Windows, so all example commands will use python to match the defaults for this platform

1) Downloading btcrecover

Just download the latest version from https://github.com/3rdIteration/btcrecover/archive/master.zip and unzip it to a location of your choice. There’s no installation procedure for btcrecover itself, however there are additional requirements below depending on your operating system and the wallet type you’re trying to recover.

2) Install Python

Note: Only Python 3.6 and later are officially supported... BTCRecover is automatically tested with all supported Python versions (3.6, 3.7, 3.8, 3.9) on all supported environments (Windows, Linux, Mac), so you can be sure that both BTCRecover and all required packages will work correctly. Some features of BTCRecover may work on earlier versions of Python, your best bet is to use run-all-tests.py to see what works and what doesn't...

Windows

Video Demo of Installing BTCRecover in Ubuntu Live USB: https://youtu.be/8q65eqpf4gE

Visit the Python download page here: https://www.python.org/downloads/windows/, and click the link for the latest Python 3.9 release (Python 3.10, etc, will work, but Python 3.9 has simpler installation of required modules) release near the top of the page under the heading Python Releases for Windows. Download and run either the Windows x86 MSI installer for the 32-bit version of Python, or the Windows x86-64 MSI installer for the 64-bit one. Modern PCs should use the 64-bit version, however if you're unsure which one is compatible with your PC, choose the 32-bit one.

When installing Python in Windows, be sure to select to "Add Python 3.9 to PATH" on the first screen of the installer...

Note for Large Multi-CPU Systems: Windows limits the number of possible threads to 64. If your system has more logical/physical cores than this, your best bet is to run the tool in Linux. (Ubuntu is an easy place to start)

Linux

Video Demo of Installing BTCRecover in Ubuntu Live USB: https://youtu.be/Met3NbxcZTU

Most modern distributions include Python 3 pre-installed. Older Linux distributions will include Python2, so you will need to install python3.

If you are using SeedRecover, you will also need to install tkinter (python3-tk) if you want to use the default GUI popups for seedrecover. (Command line use will work find without this package)

Some distributions of Linux will bundle this with Python3, but for others like Ubuntu, you will need to manually install the tkinter module.

You can install this with the command: sudo apt install python3-tk

If any of the "pip3" commands below fail, you may also need to install PIP via the command: sudo apt install python3-pip

If you get a message that there is no installation candidate for Python3-pip, you will need to enable the "universe" repository with the command: sudo add-apt-repository universe

You can then re-run the command to install python3-pip from above.

MacOS

While MacOS will happily install python3 on demand, it's likely that you will need some additional packages to be able to build modules like coincurve.

  1. Install brew via instructions at brew.sh

The Install command is:

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

Be sure to follow the instructions and add brew to your path...

  1. Install coincurve build requirements

The Install command is:

xcode-select --install
brew install autoconf automake libffi libtool pkg-config python

3) Install requirements via Python Pip

Once both Python3 and PIP have been installed, you can automatically install all the requirements for all features of BTCRecover with the command:

pip3 install -r requirements.txt

If you are an advanced user, you may choose to install only those additional packages that are required for the specific recovery you are attempting. More information about which wallets require which packages is at the bottom of this guide.

4) Install PyOpenCL for GPU Acceleration

GPU Support will require additional OpenCL libraries to be installed that aren't covered by the above commands...

For more information and instructions, see the GPU acceleration page here

5) Testing your Installation

Once you have downloaded and unzipped BTCRecover, installed Python and all required libraries, you can test the program with the command:

python run-all-tests.py -vv

This command will take a few minutes to run and should complete without errors, indicating that your system is ready to use all features of BTCRecover.

Wallet Python Package Requirements

Locate your wallet type in the list below, and follow the instructions for only the sections listed next to your wallet.

PyCryptoDome

With the exception of Ethereum wallets, PyCryptoDome is not strictly required for any wallet, however it offers a 20x speed improvement for wallets that tag it as recommended in the list above.

Windows

PyCryptoDome support is provided via the pycryptodome module. This can be installed via PIP.

Linux

Many distributions include PyCrypto pre-installed, check your distribution’s package management system to see if it is available (it is often called “python3-pycryptodome”). If not, try installing it from PyPI, for example on Debian-like distributions (including Ubuntu), if this doesn't work:

sudo apt-get install python3-pycryptodome

then try this instead:

sudo apt-get install python3-pip
sudo pip3 install pycryptodome

OS X

  1. Open a terminal window (open the Launchpad and search for "terminal"). Type this and then choose Install to install the command line developer tools:

    xcode-select --install

  2. Type this to install PyCryptoDome

    sudo pip3 install pycryptodome

Google Protocol Buffers

Windows

Open a command prompt window, and type this to install Google Protocol Buffers:

pip3 install protobuf
Linux

Install the Google's Python protobuf library, for example on Debian-like distributions (including Ubuntu), open a terminal window and type this:

sudo apt-get install python3-pip
sudo pip3 install protobuf

OS X

  1. Open a terminal window (open the Launchpad and search for "terminal"). Type this and then choose Install to install the command line developer tools:

    xcode-select --install

  2. Type this to install Google Protocol Buffers:

    sudo pip3 install protobuf

PyCryptoDome is also recommended for Bitcoin Core or Litecoin-Qt wallets for a 2x speed improvement.