Copay is a Multisig HD Wallet. Copay app holds the extended private keys for the wallet. The private key never leaves the device, so for accessing a wallet funds it is necesary to have the device or a backup of the wallet.
* Wallet recovery phrase (RP): 12 words mnemonic backup (available from Copay v1.2+). The 12 words are used as wallet seed, following BIP39 specification. The wallet RP may require a passphrase to recreate the wallet (if one was specified at creation time).
* Wallet Backup (WB): Exported data from Copay, containing an AES encrypted JSON with many wallet parameters (like extended private key, wallet name, extended public keys of copayers, etc. See #export-format). This data can be created from Copay v1.2+ (Settings -> Advanced -> Export) and it was the default backup format on previous Copay versions. WB can be a file (standard format for Copay desktop versions) or a text (standard for Copay mobile versions).
* Full Recovery: All the features of Partial Recovery + wallet name, copayer names are recovered, past payment proposal metadata (who signed, and notes) are recovered.
- Go to 'Create Wallet', and enter the RP at 'Advanced Options'. Select a new name for the restored wallet. Total and required number of copayers should be set to 1.
- If the wallet existed, it may be necessary to rescan Wallet's addresses for funds (from Settings -> Advanced -> Wallet information -> Scan Addresses for Funds)
- Enter one RP at Create (at the Advanced option section). Note that the wallet configuration (M-of-N and network paramenters) needs to match the parameters that where entered when the wallet was first created. Wallet name and copayer nicknames need to be entered also, but there is no need for them to match the original wallet setup.
- Ask other copayers to join the wallet using the given invitation code. All copayers need to enter their RP at Join (at -> Advanced Options -> Wallet Seed).
In this case, Copayers will not be able to decrypt the 'notes' field on the new Spend Proposals, because the shared secret stored at the WB is not longer known by other copayers.
In case hardware based wallet is created and then the hardware device is lost, it is possible, using Copay, to access the funds in case the hardware device seed (mnemonic) is available.
You can select the account you need to import and select if the wallet is multisig or not thru the `derivation path`: Copay uses `m/48'` for multisignature hardware wallets, and `m/44'` for all the other wallet types. The format is the following: