Is it safe to take a photograph of a recovery phrase and delete it afterward?

No. A photo may have synced to cloud backups, thumbnails, recently-deleted folders or another device before deletion. The recovery words should be treated as compromised if their exposure is plausible.

The answer

No. A photo may have synced to cloud backups, thumbnails, recently-deleted folders or another device before deletion. The recovery words should be treated as compromised if their exposure is plausible.

What to do next

Create a new wallet using a fresh offline-generated recovery phrase and transfer assets after verifying the new receive address. Remove the image from synced locations but do not rely on deletion alone.

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Frequently asked questions

Can a hardware wallet fix a leaked seed phrase?

No. The leaked phrase can recreate the keys; assets need moving to newly generated keys.

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