<p>Yes, There is a way but it may not be 100% accurate.</p>
<p>52 character <strong>WIF</strong> means you have a compressed private key.</p>
<p>Which means the <strong>Base58</strong> decoded byte representation of that key should have compressed byte flag <code>01</code> at exactly offset 33</p>
<p><strong>WIF compressed layout:</strong></p>
<div class="s-table-container"><table class="s-table">
<thead>
<tr>
<th>mainnet</th>
<th>privatekey</th>
<th>compressed flag</th>
<th>checksum</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>1 byte</td>
<td>32 byte</td>
<td>1 byte</td>
<td>4 byte</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>80</td>
<td>variety</td>
<td>01</td>
<td>variety</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table></div>
<p>Now since you don't know which characters are wrong, we can only assume only byte offset <code>0</code> is correct and to find position where you mistyped the key it's hard but you can narrow it down like this:</p>
<p><strong>Decode WIF to hexadecimal.</strong></p>
<p><strong>Check if the hexadecimal representation has <code>01</code> at position 67-68.</strong></p>
<p><em>If not the error is too hard to correct.
If yes then there is a chance but you have to analyze deeper.</em></p>
<p>I did this with someone's WIF few back and successfully recovered it but you need one of these or both:</p>
<pre><code>Address
Public key
</code></pre>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-03-15T05:25:02.707Z
2024-03-15T10:59:41.177Z
2024-03-15T10:59:41.177Z
terry franklin
<p>I had the pleasure of setting up a Bitcoin wallet using the Blue Wallet app and diligently noted down the 52 characters of my private key on a piece of paper for backup purposes.</p>
<p>Upon revisiting the paper to import my private key into a Wallet App, I discovered, that it was not recognized by the system.</p>
<p>It appears I may have inadvertently transcribed 2-3 characters inaccurately.</p>
<p>Could you kindly advise if there's a method by which I might retrieve my private key through Python, assuming the misspelling of up to three characters..?</p>
<hr />
<p>I apologize for the lack of clarity in my explanation. I imported a private key, which was generated externally, into the Blue Wallet and subsequently destroyed the written copy of that private key.</p>
<p>Afterward, when I attempted to transcribe the 52-character private key from the backup tab in Blue Wallet onto paper, it seems I may have incorrectly noted down 2-3 characters.</p>
<p>Therefore, my inquiry is not specifically about Blue Wallet. I'm asking if there's a way to recover the correct sequence when 2-3 characters out of an arbitrary 52-character string are missing, not involving seed phrases.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-03-14T07:10:46.880Z
Hi! I checked the Blue Wallet app from Play Store. I can see only the seed words as an export option. Do you have a list of words or a random alphanumeric string? If you have the random string, where can you export it in the app? A standard private key (256-bit) should have 64 chars
Juha Siivikko
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-03-15T00:05:44.963Z
Thank you for your reply. I believe my explanation might have been insufficient. I have added more details to the main text.
minodo
<private-key><wallet-recovery><python><private-key-import><recover-private-key>
Partial private key recovery
minodo
# Partial private key recovery

(Asked by: username_0 on 2024-03-14)

I had the pleasure of setting up a Bitcoin wallet using the Blue Wallet app and diligently noted down the 52 characters of my private key on a piece of paper for backup purposes.

Upon revisiting the paper to import my private key into a Wallet App, I discovered, that it was not recognized by the system.

It appears I may have inadvertently transcribed 2-3 characters inaccurately.

Could you kindly advise if there's a method by which I might retrieve my private key through Python, assuming the misspelling of up to three characters..?

---

I apologize for the lack of clarity in my explanation. I imported a private key, which was generated externally, into the Blue Wallet and subsequently destroyed the written copy of that private key.

Afterward, when I attempted to transcribe the 52-character private key from the backup tab in Blue Wallet onto paper, it seems I may have incorrectly noted down 2-3 characters.

Therefore, my inquiry is not specifically about Blue Wallet. I'm asking if there's a way to recover the correct sequence when 2-3 characters out of an arbitrary 52-character string are missing, not involving seed phrases.

**Tags:** private-key, wallet-recovery, python, private-key-import, recover-private-key

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: Hi! I checked the Blue Wallet app from Play Store. I can see only the seed words as an export option. Do you have a list of words or a random alphanumeric string? If you have the random string, where can you export it in the app? A standard private key (256-bit) should have 64 chars  
> **username_0**: Thank you for your reply. I believe my explanation might have been insufficient. I have added more details to the main text.  

---

## 1 answers

### Answer by username_2 on 2024-03-15. Score: 0

Yes, There is a way but it may not be 100% accurate.

52 character **WIF** means you have a compressed private key.

Which means the **Base58** decoded byte representation of that key should have compressed byte flag `01` at exactly offset 33

**WIF compressed layout:**

| mainnet | privatekey | compressed flag | checksum |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 byte | 32 byte | 1 byte | 4 byte |
| 80 | variety | 01 | variety |

Now since you don't know which characters are wrong, we can only assume only byte offset `0` is correct and to find position where you mistyped the key it's hard but you can narrow it down like this:

**Decode WIF to hexadecimal.**

**Check if the hexadecimal representation has `01` at position 67-68.**

*If not the error is too hard to correct.
If yes then there is a chance but you have to analyze deeper.*

I did this with someone's WIF few back and successfully recovered it but you need one of these or both:

```
Address
Public key

```


---

