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# Unshield and recover

Unshield moves ready Shielded ETH to an explicit public recipient.

## Choose amount and recipient

Enter ETH or USD, choose a saved contact/account or exact address, and review
the private debit and public amount received. Contract recipients require an
extra warning acknowledgement.

WalletChan can limit an Unshield to the amount available in one ready
commitment, even when the total Shielded ETH balance is larger.

## Withdrawal methods

### Private relay

A relayer submits the public transaction. The quote shows relay fee in ETH/USD
and percentage, provider/route, and expiry. Quotes auto-refresh. WalletChan
enforces a hard fee cap and provides no unsafe override.

Relayed withdrawals appear only in Private Activity because no WalletChan
public account submitted the transaction.

### Receiver pays gas

An eligible WalletChan signing account submits the public transaction. That
account and transaction are publicly visible. The action appears in both its
Public Activity and the richer Private Activity entry.

### Public withdrawal / recovery

A public exit returns whole selected commitments to their matching original
depositor and explicitly links the withdrawal. It is a recovery route, not a
private relay.

Eligible local/Bankr paths can combine 2–8 same-account commitments atomically.
Ledger processes one commitment at a time. The review groups commitments by
account, date, and amount and requires a public-linkage acknowledgement.

## Shield recovery phrase

The Shield phrase is a separate 12-word wallet-wide privacy identity. It is not
your wallet seed phrase.

Under **Settings → Security → Shield Recovery** you can:

* Reveal, hide, copy, and verify the current phrase with master proof.
* Restore an existing phrase and rescan Shield state.
* Replace the phrase only after reviewing ready/pending funds at risk and
  confirming two loss acknowledgements.

Agent sessions cannot enter recovery management.

## Stuck or unavailable balance

Check whether the deposit is confirming, compliance-pending, ready, claimed by
an in-progress operation, or needs recovery. Avoid starting duplicate exits.
Use the Deposits/Public recovery view when a private route is unavailable and
you accept the loss of privacy.

## Related guides

* [Shield ETH into Private mode](/privacy/shield)
* [Back up the separate Shield recovery phrase](/security/backups#shield-recovery-phrase)
* [Track private deposits and withdrawals](/wallet/activity)
* [Troubleshoot Shield and Unshield states](/help/troubleshooting)