Where is the account I created on my mobile?

I've been out and about lately, exploring the Web3 events in Miami during Tech Week and Art Basel. It's been a dizzying few days and I've been learning more and more about Web3 and all of its utilities. One thing I've started doing is creating different accounts on my Metamask wallet in order to keep transactions and networks separate.

Quick Tip: If you make an account on your mobile, it won't show up in your extension until you click Add Account. Each wallet will show up in the order in which you made them.

I created an account on my mobile for my new Unstoppable Domain (I got katwoman.x! It pays to be an early adopter) and minted my domain on the Polygon network. The mobile profile editor for Unstoppable Domains is still in development, so I went onto my browser to edit my profile and my KatWoman account I created wasn't in my Metamask extension.

Huh? Don't they sync? In fact, they do not.

I hunted around the documentation and knowledge-base posts and all I could find were instructions to reset your wallet, which is different than resetting your account and WARNING, WARNING, WARNING! Finally, I found an article that said you have to manually add accounts to the extension if they're created elsewhere.

So here's how it goes -

• When you create a wallet with a secret key, it starts with the default account (Account1) at slot 0.
• When you create a new account in either your browser extension or your mobile app, it creates a new address at the next open slot (1, 2, 3, 4). The new account is created using the keccak256 hash based off of your private key associated with your wallet, so it will always be the same for the new slot, whether you create it on your phone or in the extension.

Use cases for creating new accounts

So let's say you're out and about and you create two new accounts on your phone, say one for POAPS and then one for a new DAO you want to join. When you get back home and you want to access the DAO account from your browser extension, you'll need click 'Add Account' twice. They'll show up as Account2 and Account3, even if you renamed them on your phone. You'll just have to rename them again in your extension. The important thing to note is that the account in slot 1 (which is Account2 - remember computers start counting at 0) in your extension and the account in slot 1 (again, which is slot 2 in human terms) on your phone have the same address, so it's the same account. Voila!

So before you start worrying about restoring, resetting or re-anything-ing your Metamask extension or mobile app, try adding an account first. I promise you won't be creating more accounts, just adding them to the extension and/or app, so you can use them and move on with your day!

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