The Difference Between Restoring and Importing a Wallet in Mycelium
Mycelium offers two distinct ways to bring existing funds into the application: “Restore” and “Import,” and understanding the difference is crucial. The “Restore” function is used with a 12 or 24-word recovery phrase from a Hierarchical Deterministic (HD) wallet like Mycelium itself or another compatible wallet (e.g., Electrum). This process recreates your entire HD tree, including all generated addresses and their transaction histories. The “Import” function, often found in the expert settings, is for adding a single private key, such as from a paper wallet or an old Bitcoin address. The mycelium wallet will sweep the funds from that single key into a new address within your main HD wallet. Restoring is for recovering a full wallet backup, while importing is a one-time action to move funds from a non-HD source into your managed HD wallet. Using the correct method ensures your funds are properly organized and backed up by your master seed phrase.
