MultiBit Classic and MultiBit HD were among the most widely used Bitcoin wallets of the
2011 to 2016 era. Both were abandoned in 2017. Years later people find an old laptop, a
backup drive, a .wallet file, a .key file, or an mbhd.wallet.aes file, and discover
that the original software no longer syncs, no longer opens, or no longer exists to
download.
That does not mean the Bitcoin is lost. MultiBit recovery is almost always a file-format and migration problem rather than a blockchain problem. The coins never left the blockchain. The only question is whether the keys can be read out of what you still have.
Situations I recover from
Forgotten MultiBit password. Encrypted .wallet files and mbhd.wallet.aes files can
be tested offline on GPU hardware. What decides the odds is not the hardware, it is how
much you remember: the era you set the password in, the words and substitutions you used
then, the length, the endings. Bring fragments, not certainty.
The file will not open, or MultiBit says it is corrupt. "Could not load wallet," "cannot read wallet," and decryption failures are file-level problems most of the time. I read keys directly out of damaged wallet files, including keys the application can no longer see.
Obsolete software, modern machine. MultiBit's servers and price feeds are gone, so
even a perfect installation will not sync. I evaluate Classic and HD wallet files directly
instead of trying to resurrect the application. Do not download MultiBit from a search
result. The official domain no longer belongs to the project: as of 2026-08-25,
multibit.org returns a 301 redirect to soft-hub.net, an unrelated general software
forum with no MultiBit content on it. Every download link you find now points somewhere
the MultiBit developers do not control, and you have no way to verify what you are
installing against a wallet holding real coins.
A seed phrase that restores an empty wallet. MultiBit HD derives addresses under
m/0', not the BIP-44 path modern wallets assume. A correct seed entered into Electrum
with default settings shows a balance of zero and looks like a disaster. It usually is not.
Private-key export confusion. Some MultiBit Classic wallets have .key exports. If you
are not sure whether an export contains spendable keys, the change addresses, or neither,
I can inspect the format safely without you sending secret material first.
A deleted MultiBit wallet file. If the drive has not been heavily written since, forensic recovery of the file is often possible. Stop using that drive now, before anything else.
What to do right now
- Stop writing to the drive if the file was deleted. Every minute of normal computer use lowers the odds.
- Copy the whole MultiBit folder before you try any tool on it, and work only on the copy. Never let a recovery tool touch your only original.
- Do not delete the old folder, even if the application looks broken beyond repair.
The
*-datadirectory and thewallet-backupfolder hold real recovery material. - Look for these specific files:
.wallet,.info,.key,mbhd.wallet.aes,mbhd.yaml, and anything namedwallet.aes.ziporzip.aes. Drop each one into the free MultiBit wallet file diagnostic to find out what it is before you do anything else with it. - Write down what you remember about the password and the approximate year you last used the wallet, before the memory fades further.
- Ask for a free assessment before sending any secret material to anyone, including me.
Not sure what you are looking at?
Start with the file itself. The free
MultiBit wallet file diagnostic reads a .wallet,
.key, .info, mbhd.wallet.aes, or wallet.aes.zip in your own browser and tells you
which MultiBit format it is, whether it is encrypted, and whether it is complete or has
lost bytes. That last one matters more than anything else here: a truncated file and a
wrong password produce the identical error in MultiBit, and they are completely different
jobs. Nothing is uploaded, no password is asked for, and there is an offline copy.
Two guides then cover the technical ground in full, and both are free:
MultiBit wallet files: locations, formats, backups, and derivation paths
explains every .wallet, .key, and wallet.aes.zip file, where each MultiBit version
stores them on Windows, macOS, and Linux, the automatic backup folders MultiBit kept, the
m/0'/0 derivation path an HD seed needs, and what each error message actually means.
How to transfer Bitcoin from a MultiBit Classic or MultiBit HD wallet into Electrum is the step-by-step migration if you still know your password and simply need your coins out of dead software and into something maintained.
If the password is gone, or the file will not open at all, that is where I come in.
How the recovery works
The process is the same five steps I use for every recovery: an honest assessment, a written contract, secure transfer of your wallet file, the recovery work itself, and return of your coins to an address you control. You pay nothing unless I succeed. The fee is published openly: 15% of the recovered amount for wallets under 100 BTC. Before you send anything, read what happens to your wallet file once you send it, from transfer through to destruction.
You will know exactly who is responsible for the job. David Veksler, operating through a Colorado-registered LLC with a physical address, a written contract, and a published PGP key. If your case is not worth attempting, I will tell you that instead of taking your money, and I will usually tell you why.