Home / Updates / Check your balance without importing your seed
Check your balance without importing your seed
To check your balance, use a watch-only app with your public addresses, never your seed phrase.
Written by John AlewineReviewed by the Crypto Guidance team
Published ยท Updated
A watch-only wallet is a viewer. It knows your public addresses, so it can show balances and incoming payments. It holds no private key. It cannot spend.
The shortcut to skip: importing your seed phrase just to see the balance faster. That turns a viewer into a hot wallet on the worst device you own. If you already did that, the app is not watch-only anymore.
Two quick checks
- A real watch-only app needs only public data. A lookalike portfolio tracker that asks for your seed is a drainer.
- If the balance looks empty, the app may not be looking far enough down your list of addresses. That is a software setting, not a theft.
An AI assistant can explain what a watch-only app is, but whether a tracker asks only for public addresses is something you check yourself, on its screen.
It is a viewer, not a vault and not a backup. I usually set a household up with one next to a hardware wallet. The security page covers the rest of the setup.
If you want a second set of eyes, I sit with people one at a time and never ask for your keys or seed phrase.