Backing up and Restoring Accounts
In the case that your Polkadot account needs to backed up and later restored, there are simple ways to take care of this in Polkadot.js Browser Plugin, Polkadot.js, and Parity Signer. Note that in order to recover an account, it is necessary that an account is created according to the instructions here.
Polkadot.js Browser Plugin
For using the Polkadot.js browser plugin, restoring an account is simple. Let's start off by heading over to the extension and selecting the desired account to restore. Click on the three dots beside the address to open up a settings tab.
From here, we will be selecting the Export Account button, which will then ask you for the password
for that specific account. Once you enter the password, the browser will automatically download a
.json file that will hold all the account restoration details that will be used when you restore
your account. This part is very important.
Now, onto restoring the account. In Polkadot.js browser plugin, let's click on the + button at the
top. This will open up a tab with many choices listed, select "Restore account from backup JSON
file". This will then prompt you for the .json file which was download earlier and the password
for that account.
Once these are filled out, and the "Restore" button has been pressed, you'll be taken back to the main page of the plugin. There listed will be your restored account!
Polkadot.js
If you're using the main Polkadot.js UI, restoring an account will feel similar to restoring an account on Polkadot.js browser plugin. The first step is to head over to the chosen account and click on the three dots beside it. This will open up a tab with lots of options. For backing up the account we'll restore later, press on "Create a backup file for this account".
From there, a pop up screen will appear, prompting for the password of that account. By entering
your password and clicking on "Download", your browser will download the .json file associated
with the Polkadot account. This .json file holds all relevant data about the account to be used in
account restoration.
Now that's completed, it's time to restore the account. On the Polkadot accounts page, click on the
"Restore JSON" button, which will let you upload your .json file that you downloaded and enter
your password for that account.
Once you've pressed the "Restore" button, you should see a green notification letting you know that your account has been restored. That's it!
Parity Signer
To back up an account we'll restore below in Parity Signer, open the app and click on the user profile icon in the top right hand corner.
From here, we want to choose "Show Recovery Phase", which will be the next step in restoring an account.
The next step will require you to enter your PIN that was created with your account on Parity Signer. Once this has been added, you'll have access to your Mnemonic Recovery phrase for your account.
Now, it's time to restore the account. Open up the Polkadot.js on your browser, and navigate to "Add Account". Though this may seem counter-intuitive, we aren't actually adding in an account here, rather we are restoring the account using its mnemonic recovery phrase. It is very important here to put in the mnemonic recovery phrase from your Parity Signer account.
Note that you can change the name and password if desired.
Once you hit save, click on "Create and backup account", which will download a .json file that
contains all the relevant data for that account. At this point, we have successfully saved the
Parity Signer account onto Polkadot js and downloaded the account data, now we have restored the
account.
