How can I use my private key without a wallet?

Many Bitcoin wallets offer a way to import your private key.

If this is done correctly, you will have control over all balances previously associated with that private key.

There are many potential problems

• key: Most wallets have many private keys instead of just one. If you only know one key, you may not be able to regain control of money that is under the control of other keys. The exception is for HD master private keys.
• HD: Modern wallets are hierarchical deterministic wallets (HD wallets) that derive a set of private keys from a seed number via a master private key. For these types of wallets, you need to ensure that the wallets use the same derivation path. If the lost wallet software wasn’t HD, the derived pass doesn’t matter.
• WIF: Many wallets are particular about how they write their keys. Many people require their private keys in a format known as Wallet Interchange Format (WIF). You may need to convert your private key to WIF if you haven’t already done so.
• descriptor: Some wallets no longer offer importing private keys, but rather importing “descriptors” that contain both private key data and information about the type of Bitcoin address that was used. There are many different types of Bitcoin addresses, including P2PK, P2PKH, P2SH, P2wPKH, and P2WSH. The current version of Bitcoin core is designed to import descriptors, which can be more difficult to use if you only have the private key.

In general, you will have the best chance of success if you know the following:

• Manufacturer name and product name of the lost wallet software
• The version number of the lost wallet software (or at least the year it was downloaded)
• Some Bitcoin addresses are used to receive money transfers.