Cake Wallet restore height explained

Quick steps

1. Check your seed type. Count the words. A 16-word Polyseed carries its date; 25-word legacy and 12-word BIP39 Monero seeds need a height or date.
2. Find your saved height. Look for a height you wrote down with the seed, or the height shown on the old wallet's seed screen. Exports from Exodus and Cake show one.
3. Otherwise pick a safe date. Choose a date a few days to a week before your first deposit. If unsure, go back further; it costs only sync time.
4. Convert date to height if needed. Use Restore from date in the app, or the Frosting Guide restore height tool, which estimates a block for a date with a safety margin.
5. Restore and wait. Enter the height or date on the restore screen, tap Restore and keep the app open until syncing finishes.
6. Rescan if funds are missing. If the balance is short after syncing, open Rescan in the connection settings and scan again from an earlier date or height.

Monero hides amounts and addresses, so a wallet cannot simply ask a server "what is my balance?". It downloads each block and checks every transaction with your private view key. Scanning the whole chain from 2014 takes a long time on a phone. The restore height (or wallet birthday) tells Cake Wallet where to start. A good height means a fast, complete restore.

When you need one

How to choose a good height

The rule is simple: earlier is safe, later is risky. A wallet only sees transactions from its restore height onward. If you start one day after your first deposit, that deposit and anything that depends on it are missing and the balance is wrong. Starting a year early costs only extra sync time (Cake Wallet docs, 2026).

• Best: the exact height you saved when you created the wallet. Cake Wallet shows a height next to 25-word seeds on the Recovery & Keys screen; write it down with the words.
• Good: a date a few days to a week before the first transaction. Cake's docs give the example of picking 31 January 2020 for a wallet created in February 2020.
• If unsure: go back further. A year earlier than your best guess is a reasonable fallback.
• Last resort: a very low height scans almost the whole chain. It works, but expect hours on a phone.

Converting a date into a height

The restore screen accepts either a block height or a date: tap Restore from date and the app converts it for you. If you want to see the number yourself, use our Monero restore height tool. It runs in your browser and subtracts a safety margin.

Monero produces a block roughly every two minutes, about 720 a day. Some reference points from a public block explorer:

These are approximations for choosing a starting point, not exact timestamps. Always round down, toward an earlier block.

Where to find your old height

• Your own notes: many people write the height next to the 25 words.
• The old wallet: Monero GUI and CLI show a restore height; Cake's docs say Exodus Mobile showed a wallet creation height in its Monero settings, though that screen may no longer be reachable since Exodus dropped Monero (see Exodus migration).
• Your first transaction: an exchange withdrawal record or email gives a date. Pick a few days before it.
• Known start dates: Exodus's support article suggests 26 April 2019, the date Exodus first supported Monero, if you do not know your first transaction.

A worked example

Say you created a 25-word Monero wallet in another app sometime in mid-2021 and your first deposit came from an exchange in August 2021, but you never wrote down a height. Pick 1 August 2021, or 1 July 2021 to be safe, with Restore from date. The wallet then scans roughly from that point to today. If the balance later looks too low, rescan from January 2021. Each step back costs only sync time, never funds.

Fixing a wrong height with Rescan

If the wallet has finished syncing but the balance is too low or older transactions are missing, rescan. According to Cake's docs, open the settings, go to Connections and tap Rescan; the option appears for Monero, Zcash and Decred wallets. The dialog asks for a date or a block height and, for Monero, pre-fills the saved restore height.

• Choose a date about a week before the first transaction, or earlier if unsure.
• During the rescan the history disappears and the balance shows 0 before transactions reappear one by one. That is normal.
• Keep the app open and the screen on until the sync indicator disappears.
• Warning: a rescan deletes saved transaction keys and destination addresses stored on the device. If you need them to prove a payment, record them first.

Still missing funds? Check that you restored the right seed type and account, and see balance zero or missing.

Making the sync faster

A good height is the biggest speed-up. Beyond that: stay on stable Wi-Fi, keep the app in the foreground, use a reliable node or your own (see custom nodes), and on Android consider background sync for Monero. Large rescans over Tor are much slower; Cake's docs suggest syncing over a clearnet connection to your own node and switching Tor back on afterwards.

A safety note

A restore height is not secret, so you can type a date or block number into a tool safely. Your seed is different: never enter it into a website, including tools that claim to find your height for you. Frosting Guide tools never ask for seeds.

Frequently asked questions