Etherwall was one of the first applications released to allow users to manage their Ether and ERC-20 tokens. Many early adopters used this software to purchase Ether when it was worth very little.
If you used this wallet software a long time ago but no longer know where your wallet files are located, you are not alone. To recover your funds, you have two primary options: you can search for the wallet files manually or use an automatic tool.
The manual way to find Etherwall files
The manual approach involves searching your computer for specific files generated by the wallet software. Etherwall stores wallet data in a format known as a Ethereum JSON keystore file, or UTC keystore file.
To find these files, you should search your computer for any file name that starts with UTC--. Typically, these files
have long, complex names, such as UTC--2025-12-14T13-01-56.070326200Z--63218084234fd497ea6faad0da4eb282e32ddac2. Their
contents should look something like this:
1{
2 "address": "63218084234fd497ea6faad0da4eb282e32ddac2",
3 "crypto": {
4 "cipher": "aes-128-ctr",
5 "ciphertext": "ce7d045ac3c0adec0f35d615fa8887647a50a8b035308d08c0eff119220aca7b",
6 "cipherparams": {
7 "iv": "8c71574ab61a213266b6ff545bc7abc4"
8 },
9 "kdf": "scrypt",
10 "kdfparams": {
11 "dklen": 32,
12 "n": 262144,
13 "p": 1,
14 "r": 8,
15 "salt": "975e330e87e879bf9b6e92aeb2788580a2180b2880af953c5a44e5243c889e3f"
16 },
17 "mac": "d3c21589dc0cd13f4f83c877eb6961053ee4a8b38b6584e5450681bc6d22a1dc"
18 },
19 "id": "5042e9d9-1f65-4617-b325-ebc95e775973",
20 "version": 3
21}
Why the manual way often fails
While a manual search is a good starting point, it has several significant drawbacks:
- Time-consuming: Sifting through old hard drives can take a massive amount of time.
- Error-prone: It is incredibly easy to miss a single wallet file among millions of other files.
- Version differences: Some older versions of wallet software may have stored files differently than what is commonly documented.
- Hidden files: If you ever renamed your wallet files or moved them to obscure locations to hide them, a standard search will likely fail.
- Lack of scalability: You cannot easily or quickly verify many different computers at once.
The automatic way: Treasure Hunter
Because manual searching is so difficult, I created Treasure Hunter. This software is designed to automate the search process and is significantly more effective than looking for files yourself.
Treasure Hunter offers several advantages over the manual method:
- Broad device support: It can scan a variety of storage devices, including HDDs, SSDs, USB keys, SD cards, and even optical media like CDs, DVDs, and Blu-ray discs.
- Cross-platform: The software works seamlessly on Windows, Mac, and Linux.
- Free scanning: You can scan your storage devices for free to see if any wallets are detected.
- Deep detection: It is specifically built to detect wallet files even if they have been renamed or hidden in obscure directories.
Instead of spending hours manually searching through your old files, you can let Treasure Hunter do the heavy lifting for you.
