monero-site/_i18n/en/resources/user-guides/view_only.md

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A view-only wallet can only see which incoming transactions belong to you. It can not spend any of your Monero, in fact it can't even see outgoing transactions from this wallet. This makes view-only wallets particularly interesting for

  • Developers writing libraries to validate payments
  • End users validating incoming transactions to cold wallets

Creating A View-Only Wallet

You can create a view-only wallet from any existing wallet.

CLI

Open an existing wallet or create a new one using monero-wallet-cli. In the wallet, type address and viewkey to display the wallet's address and secret viewkey. Type exit to close the wallet.

Next, create your view-only wallet by typing monero-wallet-cli --generate-from-view-key wallet-name. The last argument will be your new wallet's file name. You will be prompted for Standard address and View key by the wallet. Paste in your original wallet's address and secret view key. Next, enter and confirm a password for your new wallet and you're done.

GUI

Open an existing wallet or create a new one using monero-wallet-gui. In the wallet, go to the settings page:

settings

Click on Create view only wallet, then give it a name and a storage location before clicking the Right arrow:

create-view-only

Give your view-only wallet a strong password and confirm it before clicking on Create wallet:

wallet-password

Optionally, double-click the Success windows to copy the message, then click OK to close it:

Success