Was there always a recovery key and password for daedalus wallet

I bought ADA in 2018 and stored on Daedalus wallet on mac version 0.15.1. End of last year I backed up my computer to an external hard drive and then reset the computer to original settings. I have a new computer today and realized today that I needed to go move or remove my ada. When I logged into my old computer and tried opening Daedalus wallet it asked me to update to newest version which i did and then it gave me 4 options 1. create a new wallet 2. Pair from hardware, restore, or import. I don’t ever remember having to write down a password or key phrase. I have all my passwords and key phases written but nothing for Daedalus. Here are my questions:

  1. Did Daedalus provide password and key phrase in October of 2018?
  2. I have tried Importing wallet from earlier version of Daedalus but its not accepting my files (could be user error here). any advise?

Option 2: “Pair from hardware, restore, or import”

You want to “restore” your wallet using the 12/15/whatever word seen phrase.

U will need the:

  • 12 seed words in order to restore the wallet if it was a simple wallet - choose restore option
  • you will need to pair the hw wallet if u used a trezor/ledger wallet - choose pair option
  • locate the secret.key file from ur old daedalus and use it to import the wallet (u will need the spending password to move the funds) - choose import -secret.key

How to locate the secret.key

Hello, I just tried importing the secret.key files my from the hard drive it was backed up on and Im still getting the error message. The same error message listed when the old version is running. Im on a new computer and the old version isn’t on this computer.

When I select import secret key and select the pencil to find the file it doesn’t pull up or search and find any Daedalus files even when Im trying to pull them from the hard drive. Instead i had to drag the file from hard drive onto my desktop for the import feature to see the files. Not sure if this is an issue.

Im also attaching “some” screen shots of the files that are on my hard drive. Please tell me if you see the file that Im needing to open.

Please advise next steps. Id also be happy to jump on a zoom call if someone could walk me through this process to recover my funds.

secret key, but it should not be lock

And very important… u will need the spending password… do u have it?

Yes I have password…what did you mean in previous message by “secret key, but it should not be lock?”

I don’t understand what you mean by it shouldn’t be lock

I saw 2 files, secret.key and secret.key.lock

Ok i just figured it out. thank you