backup.md

wallet-cli backup

Export an account's secret + metadata to a 0600 file.

Synopsis

wallet-cli backup <account> [--out <path>] [options]

Arguments

• account — account or wallet to export, by accountId, label, or address

Options

Option	Description
--out <string>	output file path; omit to write /backups/-.json; mode 0600, never overwritten
--password-stdin	read the master password from stdin (fd 0)

Plus global options.

Notes

The file contains recoverable secret material — move it to secure storage and treat it as the key itself. See Security.

Examples

In the examples, $PW is your master password (from an environment variable, password manager, etc.), fed on stdin via --password-stdin.

printf '%s' "$PW" | wallet-cli backup main --password-stdin

⚠️ Backup written <root>/backups/wlt_d1qbj2fb.0-1783751611076.json
  Account ID  wlt_d1qbj2fb.0
  Secret      recovery phrase
  File mode   0600
  Bytes       277

⚠️ Secret material was written only to the backup file, never to stdout.

printf '%s' "$PW" | wallet-cli backup main --out ./main-backup.json --password-stdin -o json

{"schema":"wallet-cli.result.v1","success":true,"command":"backup","data":{"accountId":"wlt_d1qbj2fb.0","label":"main","type":"seed","index":0,"active":true,"addresses":{"tron":"TJToBi4Ngr6JT3HqZHfCkKvuQTvqm73HHp"},"seedId":"wlt_d1qbj2fb","secretType":"mnemonic","out":"./main-backup.json","fileMode":"0600","bytes":277},"meta":{"durationMs":1387,"warnings":[]}}

Output

data is the backed-up account plus the backup file details. The secret is written only to the file, never to stdout. Local command — no chain block.

Field	Type	Meaning
accountId	string	Account id
label	string	Account label
type	string	Account type (backupable: seed / privateKey)
index	number | null	HD derivation index; null for private-key accounts
active	boolean	Whether it is the active account
addresses.tron	string	Base58 TRON address
seedId	string	Owning seed wallet id (seed accounts only)
secretType	string	Kind of exported secret, e.g. mnemonic
out	string	Backup file path
fileMode	string	File permissions, always 0600
bytes	number	File size in bytes

Exit status

0 success · 1 execution failure · 2 usage error. See machine-interface.

See also

Security model · delete