What is the restore height and why does it matter?
A restore height tells your Monero wallet where to start looking through the blockchain for your payments. Set it before your wallet’s first payment, and you can save recovery time without missing funds. Set it too late, and your wallet may show an incomplete balance even though your coins have not been lost.
What the number means
Monero’s blockchain is its shared record of transactions, grouped into numbered batches called blocks. A block’s height is its position in that record.
When you recover a wallet using your recovery seed, the secret words that restore access to your funds, your wallet needs to find the transactions that belong to you. The restore height gives it a starting point.
For example, a restore height of 3,000,000 tells the wallet to begin checking around that block rather than scanning from Monero’s beginning.
Your recovery seed provides access to your wallet. Your restore height is only a scanning instruction. It is not a password, a payout setting, or part of your wallet address.
Why it affects recovery time and your balance
Monero hides transaction details from public view. Your wallet must check blockchain data using its private keys—the secret information that lets it recognize your payments.
Scanning years of blocks takes time, computing power, and access to blockchain data. A sensible restore height lets your wallet skip history from before it existed.
There are two important cases:
- Too early: Your wallet scans extra blocks. Recovery takes longer, but it can still find all your transactions.
- Too late: Your wallet skips part of its history. It may miss payments and show too little XMR, or even a zero balance.
A late restore height does not delete transactions or send your money elsewhere. Usually, you fix the display by choosing an earlier height and rescanning. Let that scan finish before judging the balance.
How to choose a safe starting point
Choose a block height from before the first payment your wallet could have received. If you know when you originally created the wallet, use a height from slightly before that date.
Some wallet apps let you enter a restore date instead of a block number. The app uses that date to choose where scanning should begin.
A practical approach is:
- Use the original wallet creation date if you know it.
- Choose an earlier date if your memory is uncertain.
- Use height 0, meaning the beginning of the blockchain, if you have no reliable date or height.
Height 0 is the safest choice for finding your full history, but it requires the longest scan. Do not use today’s height just because you are restoring the wallet today.
What it means for mining payouts
If you are recovering a wallet used for mining payouts, choose a height before your earliest payout to that wallet, not just before your latest mining session.
Restore height does not change your mining service’s payout threshold, release a pending payout, or shorten any confirmation or unlocking wait. It only controls which blockchain history your wallet checks.
For your records, keep the wallet’s original creation date or restore height alongside your recovery instructions. Never enter your recovery seed into a mining website or send it to someone offering recovery help.
The bottom line
Your restore height is a time-saving starting point, not a security credential. Choose it early enough to include every payment. If you are unsure, scanning from an earlier height is safer than skipping history.
