Topic: is it possible to use electrum and trezor separately (Read 278 times)

Another way to create a watch only wallet is to simply export the master public key.  Access the wallet with your hardware wallet connected, click Wallet>Information.  Copy the master public key and use that to create a new wallet. 

No, it isn't new feature... it has been available for a while.

And sorry, I forgot to mention... to have the option to use the "watching-only" wallet, you have to connect the Trezor to Electrum and create the wallet WITHOUT using wallet file encryption. When setting the wallet up, you will get this window:


If you leave it encrypted (default option), as the dialog states: "You will need your hardware device to open your wallet."

However, if you disable the encryption (note: this only affects the wallet file created by Electrum... and this file does not contain any private keys or seed information... it only has public keys), you will be able to open the wallet without the device connected and be able to view addresses/transactions etc. (== watching-only wallet)


Yeah, you should not have sent any coins from Trezor to Electrum... you should have been able to spend your "Trezor coins" using Electrum. If you actually created a unique wallet in Electrum, then sent coins from Trezor to Electrum, then spent these coins from Electrum... That would be completely the wrong way!

Or, it is quite possible, that because Electrum defaults to searching for a "Native Segwit" wallet when you setup a hardware wallet, that you were just looking at an "empty" wallet on your Trezor... and, in effect, all you did was actually move coins from one "section" of your Trezor to another.

Without being privy to what exactly you did... and the addresses/wallets involved, it is very hard to know for certain... but my understanding is that Trezor generally only uses "Legacy" (addresses that start with a "1")... and "Nested SegWit" addresses (these will start with "3").

However, when creating a hardware wallet in Electrum, it defaults to "Native SegWit":



If you left it on this default option... you would get "bech32" addresses that start with "bc1"... this is technically still a wallet controlled by your Trezor device (so uses same 24 word seed mnemonic and private keys etc and they're NOT stored in the Electrum wallet), but is NOT the same as the wallet and addresses you would see if you used wallet.trezor.io interface!

To see the same wallet as wallet.trezor.io, you need to select either the "ps2h-segwit (p2wpkh-p2sh)" option... or the "legacy (p2pkh)" option... or create both, depending on how you have been using the Trezor. For instance, I had Trezor before SegWit was implemented, so I have both Legacy and SegWit wallets.


Clear as mud? But, hopefully that does help clarify things a little bit... I know it can be a bit confusing at first!

My apologies I can't answer your question if its a new feature.  Still new to this bitcoin and learning. Yes you have to have the device connected before you can spend your coins with electrum. Currently I have it set up as it having to be connected just to view electrum wallet and spend. As HCP has mentioned you can create a "watching only" wallet which I will try out.

My confusion was that I still had to send my coins from my trezor device to the electrum device before I could spend because of bitpay. Which defeated the point of having a hardware wallet other than for security.  Maybe I did it wrong. So please don't take my comments as 100% certain.  I like to learn by making errors.

Apologies for any confusion

To my knowledge, it is same to connect Ledger Nano S or Trezor with Electrum, because it only serves as a user interface. You can see all your transactions in such created wallet, but in case you want to send the transaction you have to connect hardware wallet to your PC, since private keys for signing up a transaction never leave HW.

This might be offtopic but I would like to try.

So are like actually linking Electrum with your Trezor (a new option?)? Or is it just like in Ledger Nano S where they import the wallet's public data (public address, amount, transaction etc) to their Ledger Manager software so you can see and watch fund without the Ledger Nano S?

HCP you are a sir *I take a bow*

You are Sun Tzu to my Ronald McDonald!

I'm glad you understood my analogy.  Thought I forgot to mention the Bitpay part. 

Ahhhhh OK... I understand now, the site was using Bitcoin Payment URIs or possibly something like Bitpay that provides those somewhat "non-standard" links that hide the address and amount etc?

Yeah, they can be a PITA... for future reference, if it was Bitpay, there are actually "decoders" etc that allow you to decode Bitpay URLs, so you can pay with whatever wallet you like.


Linked isn't quite the right term... it's more like "cloning"... what you're really doing is creating a "watching only" version of your wallet in Electrum, by importing the xpub from your Trezor. You can actually open and view that wallet without having the Trezor connected. Then, if you want to spend coins, you need to connect your Trezor device to sign transactions.


I think it is more like:
- The shop only accepted cash, and I only had a credit card (Trezor), so I had to use an ATM (Electrum) to withdraw cash.

In this analogy, Electrum is the "interface" that lets you access the cash in your Credit Card. So, it's still the same cash, from the same account etc... you're just accessing it in a slightly different way.


As I said above, the Electrum wallet that shows your Trezor info is effectively "watching only"... unless you also have the Trezor device. It would be the equivalent of having a printed balance receipt from the ATM. If you dropped the receipt, someone could still see the balance, but would not be able to spend your money with it... to do that, they would need your credit card (Trezor device)

This sounds super fishy (or phishy, as the case may be.)  Do you mind sharing with us which site you were using?  It seems weird to me that it is so specific about the type of wallet you must use.

I tried to make a purchase with my bitcoins but couldn't do it with trezor. As the trezor client doesn't recognize the link with the payment address as (apologies with not knowing the technical terms) where as a software wallet such as Electrum or Myceliem etc did. Maybe you can with trezor but I'm still learning.

When I downloaded electrum I (stupidly) thought that the two (my trezor and electrum) had to be linked.  So with a small amount of use I've found this not to be the case.

I guess a good analogy is that:

The shop only accepted cash (electrum) and I only had a credit card/bank (trezor) so I had to use an ATM to get (send bitcoin) cash -  there's a wallet in that analogy somewhere haha lol

So the idea with unlinking the two is that my cash and debit card are not in the same wallet.

Theoretically, it should... I'm still unsure as to why you even needed to use Electrum in the first place? .

In particular, your original statement really confuses me...
What exactly were you attempting to do that you couldn't just do with the Trezor wallet (wallet.trezor.io)? "It had to be linked to a digital wallet"? This honestly makes very little sense to me...

In effect, Electrum == "wallet.trezor.io" for the vast majority of "basic" wallet functionality. Sure, Electrum has some nice "extra" bits like being able to "freeze" an address or use coin-control etc... but for basic receiving/sending the two operate pretty much identically.


You don't need to "un-link" anything. Electrum is just an interface to the Trezor device... if you use the Trezor device with the Trezor wallet software, or Electrum, or Myceliem or any other Trezor compatible wallet software, you will see the same addresses/transactions/balances. All of this info is on the blockchain... it isn't specific to the wallet software being used.


Simply delete the "linked" Electrum wallet file if it concerns you... all the info is contained in the Trezor device... and in effect, it only contains the Master Public Key (XPUB) from your Trezor... it does not contain any private keys or seeds.

Again, "Linking" a Trezor with Electrum[1] does not create a "new" seed or anything... all it does it import the current "xpub" into Electrum[1] so you can see the addresses/transactions... When you go to spend, it creates an unsigned transaction, sends it to the Trezor device for signing, then broadcasts the signed transaction that it receives back from the Trezor device.


[1] - You can insert any Trezor-compatible wallet software here.

Just create the new wallet. There will be 2 files in your %appdata%/Electrum/wallets folder. One is the Trezor wallet, the other is the standalone wallet.

P.S: Make sure to write down your backup seed. Without it, you can't restore the wallet if you lose the file/format the pc/etc...

There will be a wallet file linked to your Trezor, and this new one you just created (with a seed and unliked to any hardware wallet). Just open the wallet you want, whenever you want.

Ah I see I thought as much.  I was under the impression that my trezor would act the same as electrum when I bought it.

Thanks gents! you two are Legends - hopefully one day I can learn enough to give advice back to the communtiy. Still trying to understand blockchain 

In regards to un-linking my trezor and electrum.  is it just a case of transferring any coins I have in my electrum wallet back to the trezor wallet and just uninstalling electrum then re-installing and starting a new standard wallet that is not linked to my trezor?

And what happens to the wallet that was linked? I wont get any problems in the future right? ( Cant find a thread about this)

Yes... simply use the "File -> New\Restore" option in Electrum, select the "Standard Wallet" option and create yourself a new Electrum wallet that is not linked to your Trezor.

Just remember that you will need to ensure that you write down and safely store the 12 word seed mnemonic that Electrum generates when you do this.

Yes. Electrum normally runs as a standard wallet. It just supports hardware wallets (which is why Trezor works with it).

Here is a quick tutorial for it: https://bitcoinelectrum.com/creating-an-electrum-wallet/

Hi all


I linked my trezor to an electrum wallet as what I was purchasing couldn't be done with the trezor alone.

it had to be linked to a digital wallet (electrum)

Now my question is, is it possible to just set up and run electrum alone? Totally separate from my trezor?  As I dont really want them linked but still be able to send and recieve from both