Recovery Walkthrough

Use this guide if you enabled recovery before losing access to a NEAR account. You do not need to sign in to start.

Before You Start

Have these ready:

• The exact name of the NEAR account you want to recover.
• Access to the exact email address saved during recovery setup.
• One additional recovery method, such as a passkey, password, recovery code, security questions, or PIN.
• A secure place to save the recovery phrase.
• A compatible NEAR wallet for importing your new recovery phrase.

Remember your anti-phishing word. It will appear in every official recovery email from NEAR Accounts.

Recover Your Account

1. Open Recovery

Go to the Recovery page and choose Recover account.

2. Enter the Account You Want to Recover

Enter the exact NEAR account name. Recovery must have been enabled for this account before you lost access.

Enter the recovery email saved for that account. Then choose Send email code.

Recovery cannot continue if the saved email does not match.

3. Check Your Email

Open the email from NEAR Accounts. Confirm that it shows your anti-phishing word before you continue.

• If the word is correct, enter the six-digit code.
• If the word is missing or wrong, do not use the email.

Use the newest code if you received more than one email.

4. Complete One Recovery Method

Choose one method that you set up earlier:

• Approve a passkey.
• Enter your recovery password.
• Enter one unused recovery code.
• Complete the security-question check.
• Enter your 4 to 8 digit PIN.

You added at least two different method types during setup, in addition to email. You can use any one of them for normal recovery.

5. Wait for Recovery Review

The 72-hour wait starts after both checks pass.

During the wait:

• NEAR Accounts sends updates to your recovery email.
• You can cancel the request.
• A group of independent reviewers, called watchers, checks the request. Activity on the existing account cancels recovery during the wait. The watchers must approve the request before recovery can finish.

6. Access Your New Recovery Phrase

After the 72-hour wait and watcher approval, NEAR Accounts emails you a link to view your new recovery phrase.

You can open the link on any device. The link expires after seven days or after you view the phrase, whichever happens first.

Before you open the link, prepare a secure place to save the recovery phrase. You can view it only once.

7. Save and Import Your Recovery Phrase

1. Open the link from the completion email.
2. Write down the recovery phrase and store it securely.
3. Import the phrase into a compatible NEAR wallet.
4. Confirm that the wallet can open the recovered account.

After the wallet opens the account, you have access again.

Checking or Canceling a Request

Open the Recovery page to check your request and see how much time remains. You can also open the request through a link in a recovery status email.

To cancel, open the request from the Recovery page or the email link. Then choose the cancel option.

A request also stops if:

• Someone uses the existing account during the wait.
• The account owner or recovery settings change.
• An account safety check fails.

Start a new request if the first request stops and you still need recovery.

What If I Lose Access to My Recovery Email?

If you cannot open the saved recovery email, choose Lost access to this email?

To replace the recovery email:

1. Enter a new recovery email.
2. Complete two different recovery method types.
3. Enter the six-digit code sent to the new email.
4. Wait 72 hours for the email change.

NEAR Accounts notifies the old email address. A person with access to the old address can use that notification to cancel the email change.

After Recovery

Recovery stays active after you recover the account. Your recovery key, email, and methods remain in place until you remove recovery.

After recovery:

• Confirm that your wallet can open the account.
• Keep the new recovery phrase somewhere safe.
• Check your email, anti-phishing word, and methods in Settings.
• Replace any recovery code you used if you want a complete set of ten.

Remove Recovery

To remove recovery from an account:

1. Sign in and open Settings.
2. Open Manage Accounts.
3. Find Manage Your Recovery and choose Remove.
4. Enter the six-digit code sent to your recovery email.
5. Complete one recovery method.
6. Confirm the removal.

NEAR Accounts deletes all recovery methods and removes recovery from the account. Set it up again while you still have access if you want to use it later.

Technical readers can continue with the Recovery Backend Pipeline and Recovery Technical Reference.