Recovery guide · Mobile · Retired

Bitcoin Wallet for Android (Schildbach): old backups, dead phones

The original "Bitcoin Wallet" app by Andreas Schildbach was the way most people held BTC on Android from 2011 to roughly 2019. We still get cases monthly from people who left a few BTC on an old phone and only now want it back.

The backup file you (hopefully) have

The app exported encrypted backups with extensions like bitcoin-wallet-backup-YYYY-MM-DD or .aes.json. These are AES-encrypted with the spending PIN or a chosen password. With the password, recovery is a one-step decrypt. Without it, partial-memory brute-force is often viable because most users set short numeric PINs.

The dead-phone case

If the phone still boots, we can usually pull the wallet database directly. If it doesn't boot, forensic imaging may still surface the unencrypted wallet file from the original Android internal storage — depending on encryption state and rooting.

What to gather before contacting us

• Any backup file you have, even if you don't remember the password.
• The original phone (powered off — don't keep trying PINs).
• Any guesses at the PIN, password, or pattern.
• The approximate date range you used the wallet.
• Any old receiving addresses you remember — we'll confirm the balance is still there.