Paste your 24-word seed
Type or paste your ZecWallet Lite seed into the desktop app. Argos checks it locally before doing anything else.
ZecWallet Lite Recovery
Argos Rescue Wallet
A careful desktop recovery workspace for legacy ZecWallet Lite seed phrases. Validate the seed locally, scan the historical wallet state, then sweep recoverable funds to a modern Zcash Unified Address.
- Seed-only recovery path
- Local Rust backend
- Mainnet and testnet support
Server
lightwalletd
Progress
63%
Accounts
20
| Acct | Sapling | Orchard | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 0.4821 | 0.0000 | 0.4821 ZEC |
| 1 | 0.0000 | 0.1260 | 0.1260 ZEC |
| 2 | 0.0000 | 0.0000 | Scanning |
Important
This website is not a wallet
This is a download page — there is nowhere to enter a seed here, and there never will be. Argos is a desktop app; everything sensitive (seed handling, key derivation, scanning, signing) happens locally on your machine. If any website ever asks for your ZecWallet Lite seed, leave.
Recovery Flow
Made for legacy ZecWallet Lite seeds
ZecWallet Lite is no longer maintained. Argos reads its seed format, finds every address your old wallet used, and walks you through moving the funds — with every step visible.
Tell Argos how far back to scan
Pick a starting date or block height. Earlier means a more thorough scan; later means a faster one.
Find your funds across all addresses
Argos syncs Zcash blocks and surfaces every address tied to your seed — across transparent, Sapling, and Orchard pools.
Review and send to your new wallet
Check the destination address, fees, and memo before broadcasting. Nothing leaves your control until you confirm.
Who It Helps
For owners of old ZecWallet Lite seeds
Argos is designed for people who still have a ZecWallet Lite seed phrase but no longer have a working legacy wallet environment. It does not require a wallet database file.
What you'll need
- Your 24-word ZecWallet Lite seed phrase
- A modern Zcash wallet to receive your recovered funds — we recommend ZODL (iOS / Android, by Electric Coin Co.), which generates a Unified Address out of the box
- A few hours for the scan to finish — older or busier wallets take longer
Support our work
We built this because it needed to exist
Argos was not on our roadmap. We built it after watching Zcash users lose access to funds with no clear recovery path — because ZecWallet Lite had stopped being maintained and no easy alternative existed. When we couldn't find a tool that handled it cleanly, we made one.
Recovery is free, and always will be. If you'd like to support continued work on Argos and future Zcash tools, the sweep flow includes an optional donation step — you can contribute a small percentage of whatever you recover. No accounts, no subscriptions, no pressure. Your contribution helps us keep building tools that serve the Zcash community.
How it works
- During the sweep review step, enter an optional donation percentage — the default is 10%
- The app calculates a split: your funds go to your destination, the donated share goes to Sovright
- Both outputs are shown before you confirm — you see exactly what leaves and where it goes
- A memo is attached so you can match the on-chain transaction to your session
Safety
Pick a machine that matches what's at stake
Entering a seed phrase into a laptop is inherently risky. Match your precautions to the value you're recovering — and after the sweep finishes, retire the ZecWallet Lite seed permanently.
Large amounts
Use a brand-new computer for the recovery — ideally one bought with cash and set up from a verified OS installer. A factory reset is not enough at this tier, because it does not remove firmware-level malware that may already be present on a long-used machine.
Smaller amounts
On the recovery machine, run nothing except Argos and the operating system during the session. No browsing, no email login, no password manager you don't strictly need, no other apps open. Make sure full-disk encryption is on, the OS is up to date, and no one else is using the machine.
Internet required
Argos reads Zcash blocks from a public lightwalletd server, so an air-gapped machine won't work. Your seed never leaves your computer — only public block data comes in, and only the final sweep transaction goes out.
If you tested with ZODL first
The diagnostic step on the FAQ asks you to try your seed in ZODL. After you've confirmed Argos is the right tool, delete that ZODL wallet from your phone — its only job was to tell you whether the funds were elsewhere. Otherwise the seed now lives in a second place you'll need to track.
Retire the seed afterward
Any malware that touched the recovery machine may now know your ZecWallet Lite seed. The seed itself is the lasting compromise, not the machine — so reusing it on a different "clean" computer doesn't make you safe. Sweep the funds to a fresh wallet, then destroy the paper backup.
Download
Install Argos on a trusted desktop
Pick the build for your operating system below, or grab any release from the project release page on GitHub. Verify checksums or signatures when they are published alongside a release.
Get help
Questions, or stuck mid-recovery?
Recovery is stressful when your funds are on the line. Reach us through whichever channel fits — each one is read by the people who build Argos.
GitHub Discussions
Public Q&A for setup questions, error messages, and anything where the answer helps the next person too. Searchable and indexed — best for non-sensitive, technical questions.
Open Discussions →Signal group
End-to-end encrypted, real-time help. Scan the code with your phone, or use the invite link on desktop. Your phone number stays private — other members see only your Signal username.
Join the Signal group →
Prefer one-to-one help, or not comfortable with a group chat? Email us directly. Best for anyone who wants a private, async channel.
support@sovright.comArgos will never ask for your seed phrase. We cannot recover it for you and will never request it in any channel. Anyone who does — on Signal, by email, or anywhere else — is a scammer. Never type your 24 words anywhere but the Argos app itself.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
How do I know if Argos can help me?
A good first test: enter your ZecWallet Lite seed into ZODL. ZODL derives only one address per seed, so if you remember having funds in ZecWallet Lite but ZODL shows none, those funds are almost certainly sitting at other addresses ZecWallet Lite generated — and Argos is built to find them.
Which kinds of Zcash funds can Argos recover?
Argos recovers transparent, Sapling, and Orchard funds — the three pools that ZecWallet Lite derived addresses for. It does not recover Sprout funds, because ZecWallet Lite never derived Sprout keys from the seed.
What happens if my computer crashes or I close the app mid-scan?
Nothing is lost. Argos saves its progress to a local workspace as it goes, so you can relaunch the app and pick up where you left off instead of re-scanning the chain from scratch.
Where do I get a destination Unified Address?
We recommend ZODL (formerly Zashi), a free mobile wallet from Electric Coin Co. for iOS and Android. Open ZODL, tap Receive, and copy the Unified Address it shows you. To get that address onto your laptop without typos, send it to yourself via Signal's Note to Self or a notes app that syncs across your devices — the destination UA is public, so this is just a copy-without-mistakes step, not a security one. Any other modern Zcash wallet that supports Unified Addresses will also work; just make sure you control its seed.