# How to find the MetaMask vault on Firefox when MetaMask has trouble starting

**URL:** <https://community.metamask.com/t/how-to-find-the-metamask-vault-on-firefox-when-metamask-has-trouble-starting/31679>\
**Category:** Backup / Restore / Import\
**Tags:** community-keep\
**Created:** [August 5, 2026, 9:14pm UTC](https://community.metamask.com/t/how-to-find-the-metamask-vault-on-firefox-when-metamask-has-trouble-starting/31679 "2026-08-05T21:14:01Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Luigi](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/metamask/user_avatar/community.metamask.com/luigi/32/454_2.png) [@Luigi](https://community.metamask.com/u/Luigi)\
**Post date:** [August 5, 2026, 9:14pm UTC](https://community.metamask.com/t/how-to-find-the-metamask-vault-on-firefox-when-metamask-has-trouble-starting/31679/1 "2026-08-05T21:14:01Z")

</div>

Sometimes it can happen that the MetaMask wallet in the Firefox browser shows an error: **MetaMask had trouble starting** 🫣 👇

 ![image](https://europe1.discourse-cdn.com/metamask/original/3X/2/f/2f3e9196b226bede50f3cf86f5b067768741f557.png)

Sometimes it’s enough to press the 🙄 **Restart MetaMask** button, but unfortunately, sometimes it doesn’t help.

Next, you can try clearing your browser’s cache and cookies or disable other extensions… and if none of these options helped and you don’t have your seed phrase or private keys saved, then this exact guide is for you 🙂 .

I’ll show you where to find these MetaMask vault data in Firefox’s folders. And how to decrypt the vault data to get your seed phrase and private keys back.

Alright, let’s get started 🙂

1️⃣ You need to know the password for your MetaMask 🦊 wallet. That’s obvious.

2️⃣ Ways to Find Your **Firefox Profile** Location in Windows:

> **[2 Ways to Find Your Firefox Profile Location in Windows | Password Recovery](https://www.top-password.com/blog/find-your-firefox-profile-location-in-windows/)**
>
> In this tutorial we'll show you 2 ways to find your Firefox profile location in Windows 10 / 8 / 7.

Type **`about:support`** 👇 into your browser.

 ![9215d3860a299b6a233018a528e484bffa33b358_2_690x465](https://europe1.discourse-cdn.com/metamask/original/3X/b/3/b307080da700d3657ce5a24905dd2cb8a8742f48.png)

3️⃣ When you open a **Firefox Profile** folder: 👆 **xxxxxxxx.default-release**

 ![a811166fd0a9e6887cd56a505a39e875c98d68b0_2_690x364](https://europe1.discourse-cdn.com/metamask/original/3X/7/8/7884608f36d893babb9576e6b569bda378d58289.png)

Open folder **storage** 👆 and in the storage folder 📁 open the **default** 👇 folder.

 ![210fde24ee03832d15d368f64e66a05c13a39ea5](https://europe1.discourse-cdn.com/metamask/original/3X/6/1/611de2f101bcd7123d06a9d683cfe334b63960e9.png)

4️⃣ Find a MetaMask 🦊 Internal UUID

> **[about:debugging — Firefox Source Docs documentation](https://firefox-source-docs.mozilla.org/devtools-user/about_colon_debugging/index.html)**

Open Firefox and type **`about:debugging#/runtime/this-firefox`** in the address bar.

 ![debugging](https://europe1.discourse-cdn.com/metamask/original/3X/4/6/462ef5112c800cec4f7d174ae96c87f90fcdd3b2.png)

5️⃣ Now i know 🙂 that my MetaMask folders have a name: **feaa69fe-435c-4dc8-8f73-9941fd189f56** your files will have another name.

 ![Internal UUID](https://europe1.discourse-cdn.com/metamask/original/3X/4/c/4c9d11dd0a593646bb80493e17418329c2b54cf3.png)

Open a folder with a longer name 👇  
**moz-extension+++feaa69fe-435c-4dc8-8f73-9941fd189f56^userContextId=4294967295**

In this folder search file with **number**. My file is 709 👇 this file contains **MetaMask Vault Data**.

 ![idb](https://europe1.discourse-cdn.com/metamask/original/3X/3/3/332112c52029047035c8c583b0dd65f4b20b769c.png)

6️⃣ Download and install **EmEditor** : [https://www.emeditor.com/#download](https://www.emeditor.com/#download)

Or use your favorite text editor, preferably one with more features 😃

 ![EmEditor](https://europe1.discourse-cdn.com/metamask/original/3X/c/c/cc911cfc056db9190c0df01bc67b170a2512962e.png)

Right-click on your file 👆 and open it in the program **EmEditor**

7️⃣ Search for words like: **data** , **salt** or **iterations, algorithm**

 ![salt](https://europe1.discourse-cdn.com/metamask/original/3X/3/a/3ae597461edb6888f952b5b31f3066035fbd9f54.png)

8️⃣ **Text editing** 📃

You have to find something like this:

{“data”:“cWPVjHP0PiCEov5EPWuGI7kobFSAoMqKC4CyX5hmPEufIGTyFP3BkugW5x79eVJlA594IOMczHYtesLwpdbvYKHcFQtdpdJT1RDhO4fJH6S3Le54IlWNGwLxuccl6CaLZjEg1CtMp/+LsCFPBSndcVhku7bP6UETXoM0dxRVwE”,“iv”:“Eor1W8DJPU90MorZvqGw8w==”,“keyMetadata”:{“algorithm”:“PBKDF2”,“params”:{“iterations”:600000}},“salt”:“nYSGJv+aTm6w6lyP81IEMC+EdHsuj0Ojp10HNITSZRk=”}

Sometimes the word ‘ **data** ’ at the beginning may appear like this: {“ **!ôë** ”:“cWPVjHP…” and you need to add the word **data** manually.

9️⃣ Download Vault Decryptor:  
[https://github.com/MetaMask/vault-decryptor](https://github.com/MetaMask/vault-decryptor) and unzip this file to the your desktop 🖥

Open folder **vault-decryptor-master** -► and open **index.html** file in the browser

[![](https://europe1.discourse-cdn.com/metamask/original/3X/c/b/cb633edb9c90dfc88446fd63532168d33b4d77ef.jpeg "MetaMask Vault Decryptor") ](https://vimeo.com/448248687)

Paste the {“data”:} and use the password you set for your wallet in the MetaMask extension and click the “ **Decrypt** ” button 👆 as shown in the video by **MetaMask - Randy**

🔟 Everything is done 😃 and now you see your MetaMask seed phrase

If my guide helped you, you can support my always‑hungry cat or hedgehog 🦔 😂

 ![photo_2026-08-06_09-21-40](https://europe1.discourse-cdn.com/metamask/original/3X/d/3/d31afd12ec9d458efa1d76cc81a9381a5896bc4f.jpeg)

My MetaMask 🦊 ETH address is [0x8A00f43C099bEB3F5d3C289e8b93c71c32B4d52e](https://etherscan.io/address/0x8A00f43C099bEB3F5d3C289e8b93c71c32B4d52e)

**Additional tips and tricks:**

1️⃣ MetaMask vault data can sometimes also be stored in a .sqlite file. You can use a text editor to open such a file, but sometimes it’s better to use a program for SQLite, for example: DB Browser for SQLite. Or you could try my simple html tool for working with this kind of file: [https://github.com/0xLuigi/sql-data-detective](https://github.com/0xLuigi/sql-data-detective) no installation needed, and the tool works offline.

2️⃣ Sometimes just changing the file’s number is enough to get the MetaMask wallet to start normally. But this isn’t always the solution. You can read about how to do it here: [https://github.com/0xLuigi/sql-metamask-id-viewer](https://github.com/0xLuigi/sql-metamask-id-viewer)

3️⃣ If you found a file on your computer starting with the word ‘sNaPpY’ dating from 2022 or 2023, this could be a Snappy-compressed file. Snappy is a compression algorithm used internally by LevelDB, which Firefox (and MetaMask) use to store data.

This is only a problem when the text you need contains more special characters, as you can see in this image 👇 after the word ‘salt’ there’s a musical note symbol (♪)

 ![1d585c36b313fb5a0b785f9b042590af4a0eb623](https://europe1.discourse-cdn.com/metamask/original/3X/8/e/8e266b1568ac5a0c684601be7e041703d5c15da0.png)

In that case, you can use the handy program **Snappy-fox:** [https://github.com/berdav/snappy-fox](https://github.com/berdav/snappy-fox) by my friend Davide Berardi from Italy 🍕😃

Or you can try my tool **MetaMask Vault Finder:** [https://github.com/0xLuigi/metamask-vault-finder](https://github.com/0xLuigi/metamask-vault-finder) which can also do Snappy decompression.