MetaMask

MetaMask is a self-custodial Web3 wallet. It is available as a browser extension and mobile app, and it is commonly used to manage accounts, connect to DApps, switch networks, sign messages, and send transactions.

What Makes It Different

MetaMask is not an exchange account. With a self-custodial wallet, you are responsible for the Secret Recovery Phrase and for every connection, signature, approval, and transaction you confirm.

Who It Is For

It is useful for people exploring Ethereum and EVM-compatible networks, developers testing DApps, and users who need a wallet connection for Web3 apps. Beginners should start with a small learning wallet rather than a main asset wallet.

Safety Basics

Never type your Secret Recovery Phrase into a website, support form, or direct message. Always verify the official domain before downloading. Read wallet popups carefully: Connect, Sign, Approve, and Send are different actions.

Extension or Mobile App?

The browser extension and the mobile app are separate installations that can hold the same accounts if you import the same recovery phrase, but they are not automatically in sync. Most desktop DApps expect the extension. The mobile app has its own in-app browser, which is often the only practical way to reach a DApp from a phone, because a mobile browser cannot talk to the app directly. Importing the same phrase into both doubles the number of devices that can lose it, so many people keep the phone install for a smaller, separate account.

Adding a Network, and Why Balances Go Missing

MetaMask ships with a handful of networks and expects you to add the rest. A network entry is four things: a name, an RPC endpoint, a chain ID, and a currency symbol. The chain ID is the part that matters — two entries with the same chain ID are the same network regardless of what you named them. Adding a network from an unofficial list is a real risk, because whoever runs the RPC endpoint sees every request your wallet makes and can return misleading data.

If a balance disappears, the cause is almost always the network selector rather than the funds. The same address exists on every EVM chain, and each one holds separate balances. Switching networks, or switching to a different RPC for the same network, resolves the large majority of these cases.

Reading the Confirmation Screen

Four different requests use a similar-looking popup, and they do very different things. Connect shares your address with a site and grants no spending rights. Sign produces a signature — usually harmless for logins, but certain structured formats can authorise transfers. Approve gives a contract ongoing permission to move one of your tokens, and that permission persists after you close the tab. Send or a contract interaction moves funds now. Before confirming, the three things worth reading are which network you are on, which contract is being called, and which of these four actions is actually being requested.

What MetaMask Cannot Do For You

There is no password reset, because there is no account. Nobody at MetaMask can recover a lost recovery phrase, reverse a confirmed transaction, or retrieve funds sent to the wrong address. Support can explain the interface; it has no access to your wallet. Any channel claiming otherwise — a support agent in a DM, a recovery form, a "wallet validation" page — is impersonating the product. That asymmetry is the whole trade-off of self-custody: nobody else can freeze your funds, and nobody else can get them back.

Official Links

• MetaMask: https://metamask.io/
• Support: https://support.metamask.io/
• Safety in Web3: https://support.metamask.io/stay-safe/