Topic: Helpful approach of impossible seed phrase screenshoting (Read 496 times)

This insight has also happened to me sometime ago was trying to create a wallet on this application called trust wallet where I was to lazy to save my phases and wanted to making some screenshots but it couldn't, well on a second through I think if this is been allowed this could lead to many lazy people losting their assets
All in the name of not being able to save the phases at a hidden places.

Really? Well, you can't fix stupid...


Sometimes I think wallet apps should have a user first pass some sort of multiple-choice test to inquiry user's knowledge of wallet security basics. If user fails, provide learning links and postpone creation of wallet until user passes the test.  

Unfortunately this won't happen because the army of wallet noobs would drag the app into dirt complaining with bad rating votes. Most won't realize that passing the test is for the better of them.


Yes, that's one way to loose control of your pictures.

It's not uncommon that some other apps on your phone ask for permission to access the photo gallery for whatever valid reasons. Most users grant that permission without further thinking about it as the asking app may have a valid purpose. You basically loose control which apps do what with your pictures (who can control it in detail?).
Not to mention that your pictures are usually synced with some image cloud storage which may do some fancy automated image processing to index pictures content. Guess what kind of problem that could be for the secrecy of your screenshotted recovery words...


Very valid concern of doubling the risk at minimum, indeed. You can't even control anymore, with whom you partner shares their phone data shit. Divorce rates going up!  

Those who take a screenshot of their seed phrase for wallets that allow screenshot are one step closer to losing their coins because the screenshot will be saved in the person's photo gallery. If they forget to private the image, anyone who has access to the phone can easily see it, and if they understand what it is, they can get a copy of it. 
 
And for those who send their phrase to their partner's phone, you're at double risk too; you can't even know if your phone was compromised or that of your partner. If they lose their funds, the person will be confused about who to suspect.

When I was opening my account I wanted to screenshot my seed phrase but I could not I taught something was wrong with my phone not until I enquired from someone and I was told that this wallet do not permit the screenshot of seed phrase then I had to ask what the seed phrase was then I was told it is a future security of my funds and it is not meant to be exposed.
That was my first knowledge, it's a nice security from the wallet.

Inability to screenshot seed phrase shows that most wallet are concern about their users security.Even those wallet that enables it users to screenshot their seed phrase are also open to their users that smartphone is never a safe zone to secure their seed phrase.Screenshots of seed phrase is just like losing hold of ones privacy because your smartphone can be accessed by friends and relatives,and you can't tell if the person knows the value and importance of seed phrase in regards to digital wallet.Crypto users that knows the worth of their asset won't think of screenshoting or saving their seed phrase digitally.The best way to store seed phrase is storing it offline or encrypt it on a steel and placed somewhere private.

It's just how the app was designed and it's inspired from the banking websites/apps where we most often noticed that taking screenshot is not allowed for privacy and security reasons which all are small precautionary steps to restricts us from doing the most common mistakes that can cost our life savings.

Primarily saving seed phrase in the digital format is not recommended at all, write it down on a paper then keep it somewhere safe from others.

Whether screen shot or not, is for you to have the proper knowledge of keeping your seed phrase secure instead of exposing them. There are some persons who type them on their partners Whatsapp as message just because they are lazy to write them down.

It is a good preventive solution from developers of wallet software but it is only helpful for people who are careful in practice and don't try to exploit that preventive solution.

Assuming that I am a careless person and when I see the warning of screenshot is not allowed, I break this barrier by using my phone to capture a photo of my computer screen. It's bad practice from my side and destroy the good security solution from the wallet software but they are not responsible for it.

By doing this, I intentionally take risk by myself and store screenshot photo of my wallet seed in my phone is another risky practice. The phone can be lost physically and someone else can have access to images include my wallet seed screenshot. People need to read more, absorb more guides on security and finally change themselves with better and safer practice in security.

Security and Privacy Encylopedia

When you try to make a screenshot of a seed phrase, it won’t be allowed because they already know how dangerous it is to keep your seed phrase as a picture on your phone, so it won’t be allowed, but most people don’t know the implication of leaving their seed phrase on their phone, they don’t know they can easily lose everything they have in their wallet if anyone has access to their phone and can check their images. The best thing is don’t save your private key on your mobile phone or anywhere that has an internet connection, your seed phrase should be stored completely offline.

This security precaution that most wallets apply, such as denying access to take screenshots, is an extremely important measure. Even the warnings that appear when creating a new wallet are often ignored by some, who continue to take screenshots of their seed phrases on their phones, which may be unsafe and contain malicious applications with extensive access permissions, allowing them to easily access photo albums and files and steal these highly sensitive screenshots. This could result in the theft of the wallet owner's assets and funds.

It is worth noting that seed phrases should not be saved in this way or sent to any messaging application to store them on af the chats or written down in notes on a phone that is regularly used and connected to the internet by a person for installation applications that may be from unknown sources and browse the sites and the links.

the final task is to store a copy of the seed phrase in a completely safe place. We know that physical administration also carries a risk of loss. I also physically save the seed phrases that I write. but it is still paper, which can be damaged or burned.
just pray, don't get into trouble. We can only try our best to store it in a place with the least risk. everyone wants to take good care of their assets, no one wants to be in a difficult situation.

Most of the wallet I've been using having a prompt messages that keeps my seed in a safe place or avoid saving online which I'm doing to make sure my money is safe at least. If you are kind of person who always clicking links and visiting different website I highly not recommend to save your seed phrase in the internet to prevent possible thiefs if you can afford having a hardware wallet it's more highly recommended than taking screenshot if your seed if you bought one you will receive a paper that you will write your seed and make a copy of it physically and it's up to you where you will store and keep it safe.

The intention to make a screenshot or take a digital photo of your wallet's recovery words violates basic security for such important data: never make a digital copy of your recovery words on an online device (keeping it temporarily offline doesn't really help).

Digital pictures on mobile phones or tablets are commonly synced with some picture cloud storage. Those pictures clouds offer in many cases fancy features like automated tagging, content recognition, OCR and whatnot. And don't forget: cloud storage is just someone else's computers.

You likely have no control whatsoever happens with your pictures once they are uploaded to some cloud. Your pictures might even be used to train some generative picture AI. Good luck with confidentiality of your recovery words if you're stupid enough to make digital pictures of them.

Not to mention that other apps on your devices ask or have asked for permission to access pictures on your device. You know what all those apps do with your pictures?

One of risks for your digital device is screenshot your computer screen or mobile screen and get all your activities like account log in information, password and steal it. Same if screenshot is for your wallet seed phrase when you create it and password as well.

This raises one of vital warning when you create your wallet. Create it offline!

Now you can read This malware will take screenshots and steal your passwords and files and drain your cryptocurrency.

By that poor practice, you don't need hackers to infect your device and screenshot your activities but you do it by yourself, store it somewhere on your device, and wait a hacker to access it.

Sometimes it's better to be able to find it back easily, even if it implies to store it in devices not fully air gaped and to take few risks to be hacked than to lose all your funds because you've lost your seed or you can't access it anymore. If the amount is rather small and you can afford to lose it, the benefit-risk ratio could be ok. Especially if you need to use it oftentimes.

Unfortunately, Not all wallets have this feature. At least most of them still allow taking screenshots during the wallet-creating process. Some wallets ask for seed phrase verifications, some wallets do not. No matter if the wallet suggest something or not, you will have to be careful with your seed phrases and the private keys.

When I first started out in crypto, you could screenshot your private keys on Trust wallet. New users wouldn’t know but Trust wallet only implemented this feature a few years ago. I don’t like Trust wallet because they are close-source and I believe that is because of their affiliation with Binance which is a centralized exchange.
 
Don’t give bad advice to newbies. Google drive or email are bad storage methods for your private keys. If you do not want to risk losing coins, do not save your seed phrase online.

There are some wallets where you can't screenshot the wallet's seed phrase if you want. I can mention Trust Wallet as one of them. To keep this wallet safe and secure, no user can save the seed phrase of this wallet as a screenshot. Maybe google drive and have to backup manually. Or you can write it down somewhere in print form.
Make sure the wallet in which you keep your crypto assets i.e. Bitcoins is safe and secure first. If the wallet you are using to store funds cannot save the seed phrase as a screenshot avoid it, write down your seed and store it safely So that no one can access your wallet.

Assume that the Bitget wallet gives you and other users that warning, it is a good warning but only this does not make that Bitget wallet to become a good wallet to use.

Bitget wallet is close source and generally you can not expect to get open source wallets built by centralized exchanges.
https://walletscrutiny.com/?platform=allPlatforms&page=0&query-string=bitget

In cryptocurrency you need to focus on non custodial wallet and open source.
https://bitcoin.org/en/choose-your-wallet

This why I use wallet apps that are cautious of the security of their user's assets just like the BITGET wallet am using, when you want to do a back up this is the kind of information you will be seeing below which makes it easier for you to give high priority to your mnemonic phrase




As you can see from the image, taking digital copy of mnemonic phrases in a computer that has internet connectivity and taking of screenshots is marked X which means it is very risky and can lead to losing of one's assets. So the best is just to transcribe it and store in a safe place as you can see it is marked ✓ at the top of the image.

Ultimately, a feature like Disable screen capture will be useless to users who are lazy enough and don't understand what exactly the purpose of the feature is.
Taking photos with other cellphones is the same as not having any protection, even though the anti-screenshot feature was created so that users can write their own wallet seed phrase and store it in the safest place and make them remember even though it is not entirely on the seed text made.

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Yups, the need to remember the seed by writing, so that you will clearly picture what the first sentence is and still try to remember everything in the brain and save it.
It can be with paper or steel plates that are safe from damage that are now sold by hardware wallet manufacturers.

I have not come across a wallet that have not giving me that strict warning of been careful of not to expose my seed phrase. It is very important because they will also not want to lose customers to scammers. When there is high rate of stolen funds from such wallets,  they become red flagged and people won’t like to use their wallet to store funds again. They know the effect of it if their users don’t know about taking screenshots of seed phrases and saving in their phones, so it is for their own good because they’ll be the one to be at more loss than the users who would lost funds to scammers.

I don't think most crypto wallets allow their users to take screenshots of their seed phrase. You know why? They expect you to write it down and keep it in a safe place because that's one of the basic knowledge every crypto investor should know first before the start of the journey of a crypto investor.

Learning how to write down your seed phrase on a piece of paper is a good start. At least it will give you the idea that seed is the key to your crypto assets. Losing it means that you have lost your access to crypto assets

Is it possible to do screen recording within the apps where Screenshot feature is disabled? In several occasions, I have encountered same thing not on crypto wallet thou but on banking apps and some other platforms apps that not permit taking of screenshot. I do attempt to take screenshot and when they denied it, I will attempt to do screen recording but at the end the video will record but will play blank without showing what I recorded.


Yeah, there are actually wallets that don't allow taking of screenshot but trust Wallet is not one of them. I don't know whether they have improved now but I remember vividly how they allowed me to take screenshot back then. This feature actually added to our laziness to be serious in securing our wallet very well. As I typed, I still have some screenshot of my past phrases on my phone thou I don't longer use some of these wallet because they have been compromised. It's a practice we should avoid by any means.

There are wallets that doesn't allow screenshot of seed phrase. I remember very well back then when I was setting up my first wallet ( Trust wallet ) I tried taking a screenshot of the phrase but it didn't work. I got a notification immediately that screenshot are not allowed, that was how I abandoned that attempt. At first I thought they were doing me bad because I wanted to take the screenshot so fast and proceed with the wallet setup, little did I know that they were saving me from potential hack. I reached out to my diary and wrote the phrase down. Three weeks later I lost my phone on my way home, when I was ambushed by a group of boys.

They took everything away from me, the moment they left I hurried home and used my wife phone and imported my wallet and moved the assets there, since the scene of the incident wasn't far from my house. For me I don't like any wallet that will allow someone take a screenshot, I somehow feel that their security is not enough. Just imagine if I was allowed to take that screenshot, my phrase would have been exposed, but that feature prevented me. I don't really know if they still have that feature in trust wallet till date because I don't use it anymore.

laziness to write out your seed phrase is the main reason why some people attempt taking screenshots of there seed phrase. I had made several attempts to do the screenshot and it didn't work out, the next thing that came to my mind was to do a screen record while I'm on the position of the seedphase afterwards I could just pause the video and do a screenshot. All these shortcuts contribute to exposing yourself to lots of risk that's everywhere due to how insecure our mobile device are.

Another feature that needs to be disabled is allowing you to copy your seedphase to your clipboard, Most wallet allows you to copy your seedphase to your clipboard at a single click and the first thing that comes to mind after copying it is to save it up in your notepad or somewhere in your mobile device. I guess part of the consideration to take while choosing a wallet should be to check out for how concerned they are for the security and safety of her users. If they are negligence with users safety like the case with trust wallet that recommends users to backup her seed phrase on cloud, it's certainly a red flag to be mindful of.

I cannot remember which mobile wallets they were but I can remember taking a couple of screenshots of my seed phrases before. That was several years ago, though. Latest updates could have already added screenshot prevention features. Those were wallets on iOS, by the way.

Although this is a nice security addition to wallets, this might not be that helpful especially to those who are lazy or those who don't understand why screenshot protection features are in place. Other than the fact that this could also be disabled or overridden by another application, others might simply take a pic at the seed phrase.

No point to argue you, I concur because if the screenshot had been allowed, I would not have that smart diligence awareness to personally have my seed phrase in a private section where only me can get reach to it.
Indeed I like that approach of the disallowed screenshot.

The initial warning that got from the wallet was definitely a good thing, even if it seemed a little scary at first. Seed phrases are like the master keys to your crypto, so keeping them hidden is crucial. They're trying to make sure there's no way someone (even accidentally you!) could capture your seed phrase digitally. It's a smart way to add an extra layer of protection.

For wallets that allow screenshots, there's always the chance someone could grab a picture of your seed phrase without you realizing it. So, while it might seem convenient, it's definitely not the safest option.

These are measures that are put in place for our safety and somehow, it’s been over looked by a lot of users. The programmers to have designed certain wallets in this way is indeed wise as, one cannot be conscious enough on how to handle this photographs as it could easily fall into the wrong hands who knows just exactly what they are looking at.

Having a had copy has always been the best approach but that still is through writing and not photographed. Your phones and CP might seem private to you but I tell you, once in a while, you’ll always let others on it and those are times of potential danger. You’ll be sure to ensure what is private stays private, like your seed phrase.

I would not rate bitcoin wallets based on that alone. The recommended wallets to use are non-custodial wallets and bitcoin wallets that are open-source. Some wallets can have one and not the other. For example Trust wallet is a non-custodial wallet and does not allow screenshot of seedphrase but it is close-source.

Even if the wallet allows you to screenshot your seed phrase, that doesn’t mean you should. Always store your seed phrase offline and keep a backup.

Imagine making a screenshot of your seed phrase and having it saved on the your phone, feeling relaxed that you have done a screenshot and need not worry writing down and hiding it in a safe position, and you later either lost your phone or had it stolen. You lose both your phone and all funds in your wallet because you'll have no access to the seed phrase to access your funds there in the wallet. Whoever is in possession of the phone is now the new owner of the funds to the wallet. It's in the prevention of such precarious situation that screenshot of seed phrase becomes risky and some wallets doesn't allow a screenshot which makes them safe to use.

It is important that we know this, leaving our seed phrase on a screenshot is a bad practice for our asset security because after we have done this, anyone can have access to using our deceive and they can easily see the seeds we have being screenshot and copy such and import our wallet, also, some of the online centralized storage institutions we use like goggle drive can snip into our security access and see whatsoever thing we have on our device and use them against our safety, we should not allow any access for vulnerability, anything more funny could happen and we lose having control over our wallet as it is being shared with a third party. 

It is a good thing and it is the representation of good wallets that don't allow you to take screens shots, even I have seen some wallets that don't allow you to copy them to a clipboard, and that is also a good thing as some members said, it's also a good representation of a good wallets. Actually, Once I asked a question on ALTT should we share our seedphrase screenshots with AI bots so they would extract words from them as they don't allow us to copy them to our clipboard? I learned these things there.

Overall, writing them manually is really time consuming but it is the best way, because manually writing them will eliminate the hacking and scamming problem. One more thing, never save your seed phrase on you email, drive, or in your smartphone, if you want to save them in a smartphone then I would say, chose one which is new, and not connected to internet all the time.

I remembered when I was new into using crypto wallet, electrum wallet to be precise I tried to take screenshot of my seed phrases and a message just pop up that it doesn't support screenshots, I was mad at the development at first before i got the knowledge that taking screenshots of seed phrases is very risky as it can get compromised that was how i choosed electrum wallet as my most preferred crypto wallet till date. It is really very nice to choose crypto apps that is very conscious of your privacy and security because sometimes when you are about to make a mistake they either give you a warning notification or the system won't allow you to do so.

However, it has been discussed often time here on the dangers of taking screenshots of seed phrases with a phone, you can literally do an offline backup rather than taking screenshots.

The seed phrase screenshot denial is typically to drag beginners attention that your funds in the wallet can not be guaranteed safely because having your seed phrase where other people may have access to it can be risky for your funds.
It's an encouragement that you should have your seed phrase best store offline possibly on the piece of papers or on some solid objects so that you can always recover the access to your wallet when you looses your device.

This not correct, though i suggest that good wallets that still allow their users to take screenshots of their seed phrase should prevent it, the warning to not disclose it, or to only write it down is no longer enough for some naive people. But i know that this is not the prerequisite to identify a good wallet. Just as Zaguru12 said, Bluewallet is a very good wallet that so many bitcoiners use, but they allow their users to take screenshots of their seed phrase, thus if you are judging it under your critieria, it will pass for a bad wallet, which it isn't.

That is the right approach to help you maintain your wallet, the screenshot is not too bad if you can save the image in the right place, but once they allow you to screenshot it, you will feel reluctant to save it in the right place and might expose it in your phone gallery for everyone to see; but if they restrict you from screenshotting it,  you will take the right decision immediately and copy the seed phrase in the right place for future use.

Then ideally it is assumed that wallets that prevents users to make screenshots are reputable wallets which are concerned of their users funds safety while those that allows screenshots are poroused networking whose obligations are not on their network users funds safeness.

One of the reasons why they disable screenshots on some wallets is because of security reasons. Some users can be very ignorant and don't like to take their security seriously, and aside from even using another phone to snap the wallet phrase, they can easily copy and paste the wallet on their notepad and still take a screenshot of it. That's for wallets that 's for wallets that allow phrase copying. Some people also use their hands to write down the phrase on a piece of paper and still make the mistake of snapping and saving it on their phone where other eyes can easily access it without them knowing.

Yes Some wallets will stop you from taking the screenshot of your seed phrase due to the dangers of it while others will actually warn you about the dangers and still allow you to take the screenshot afterwards. In both cases I just feel the wallets are actually giving you extra precautions and this features to me doesn’t make any wallet more secure than one another. I am reading from some replies that wallets that allow you to take screenshots are not secure and I don’t think so. Even if they warn off some users, some would still write it down and then take a picture of it.


This to me is not a criteria that a wallet is good or secure wallet to use if they do allow screenshots. Take another example aside Trustwallet because I don’t rate that wallet, the BlueWallet also allows you to take screenshots and I consider it a good wallet.

I have tried this before on my wallet app, but it just displayed a blank image. Though I didn't have any money inside. I also tried on another one and it gave a notification that this action is not allowed. I don't know but I feel like this feature will not stop some stubborn people. Since their phone will not screenshot, they will just use another phone and snap the screen. And it is only going to be their fault if they steal their money.

On mobile devices and applications, many wallet softwares don't allow users to screenshot seed phrase. On desktop, you can screenshot it but it's a risky practice for security of your wallet seed phrase and money you will store in it.

When you screenshot it, you will more possibly back up your wallet seed phrase firstly in digital format and secondly in arbitrary unsafe locations too. The first risk will put your wallet seed phrase to more online exposure and risk factors. Back up your seed phrase digitally does not mean it's bad practice but if this practice combines with other unsafe steps, it's bad.

How to back up a seed phrase?

If there is this feature for a wallet that makes people avoid taking screenshots is going to be a good one. But I do not think that there will be one to have it or if there is any, I haven't seen one.

An app that I have used before like Netflix doesn't allow their users to take screenshots of their episodes or any movie and series to be taken because that is their property.

As for us users, it seems to be convenient mostly for the newbies but it is not advisable.

I would not expect all wallets have this nice feature on, hence I would not try my luck at all trying screenshots of my seed phrase.

However, this is something minimal, actually. Smartphones are not that safe. If you get to have an amount of coins you don't really afford to lose I suggest you consider improving security (hardware wallet or cold storage, seed that never touched online world, multiple copies, .. the usual stuff written all over the place)

Most standard wallets restricts you from making screenshots of your wallets keys. This is to prevent you from compromising your wallet keys or exposing them to unknown individuals that might end up stealing your funds. Some wallet lets you make screenshots without even warning. Such wallets are known as unsafe and unreliable. Avoid such wallets at all cost. If I'm correct, trust wallet lets you make screenshots of your keys and trust wallet is obviously a red flag for someone who really wants to protect his funds. Avoid making screenshots but rather write down your seed and store in safe locations.

The access denial of taking screenshots of my seed phrase during when I was processing my crypto wallet for my bitcoin assets holding obliged me with a dangerous warning approach that my seed phrase does not have to be exposed or keep out recah to people.
Else, I would had been a dumping head  flaunting my wallet seed phrase in my phone being so exposed without my knowledge that my funds are risky to be compromised.