How to Add MetaMask to Your Browser: Chrome, Firefox, Brave, Edge & Opera

Yes. The extension and apps are free. You pay only network (gas) fees on transactions, and MetaMask charges a service fee on some built-in features like Swaps and card purchases. Installing and creating a wallet costs nothing.

The password only unlocks the extension on this device, and MetaMask stores no copy of it. The 12-word recovery phrase is the wallet itself: it recreates your accounts on any device. If you forget the password, you reset it with the phrase. If you lose the phrase, no password and no support team can bring the wallet back.

Choose Import an existing wallet, or sign in with the same social account and password. Creating a new wallet gives you a second, separate wallet with its own recovery phrase, which is a common way people 'lose' funds that are actually sitting in their other wallet. If you meant to restore, import. If you genuinely want a fresh start, create.

Yes. Install the extension in the second browser, choose Import an existing wallet, and enter your recovery phrase, or sign in with the same Google/Apple account and password if you used social login. Both installs then control the same accounts.

Browsers update extensions automatically, so normally you do nothing. To force a check, open your browser's extension page (chrome://extensions, edge://extensions, about:addons or opera://extensions), enable Developer mode where the page requires it, and use the Update option. Restarting the browser afterwards applies the new version cleanly.

Open your browser's extension page and check the developer is MetaMask and that the listing matches the store links in this guide. The simplest guarantee is installing via metamask.io/download, which only ever forwards to the official listing. If anything differs, remove the extension, reinstall through that page, and treat any recovery phrase you typed into the fake as compromised: move your funds to a fresh wallet.

Nothing, as long as you have your backup. Reinstall MetaMask anywhere and restore with your 12-word phrase (or social login plus password). Without a backup, the wallet and everything in it is unrecoverable, because there is no support desk that can reset it.

Both are self-custodial: MetaMask never holds your keys. Social login removes the most common failure (lost paper backups) but adds two dependencies: your Google/Apple account and a password that cannot be reset. For larger holdings, the traditional phrase stored offline, ideally combined with a hardware wallet, remains the more robust setup.

No. MetaMask is self-custodial and never asks for an email address, name or any personal details when you install it or create a wallet. There is no 'account' in the traditional sense. The flip side: there is no password-reset email and no support recovery either. If a site or a 'support agent' claiming to be MetaMask asks for your personal details or your recovery phrase, it is a scam.

No. You can install it, create a wallet and explore without owning anything. You only need a small amount of the network's own token (ETH on Ethereum, for example) once you want to send transactions or use dapps, because every action on the network costs a small fee.

The extension injects a wallet connector into pages so dapps can request your address and signatures, which requires broad page access by design. It cannot move funds on its own: every transaction still needs your explicit approval in the popup. Granting the permission is normal; what you sign afterwards is where real caution belongs.

Yes. Ledger, Trezor and several others connect directly from the account menu. Keys stay on the device and every transaction is confirmed physically. It is the recommended upgrade once a wallet holds more than you are comfortable losing to a compromised browser.

Snaps are optional, community-built plugins that add features to the extension, such as transaction security screening, extra networks and notifications. You install them from the official Snaps directory. They run sandboxed and cannot access your accounts directly, but read the permissions each one requests before confirming. Solana and Bitcoin support, which once required a Snap, are now built into MetaMask itself.