Begin by creating a new wallet file as per this guide.
Click on next to see the wallet type selection window:
As you can see Electrum supports different types of wallets. You need to select the same type of wallet that you are restoring which in this case is the “Standard wallet”
In the next step electrum asks you to choose where the wallet secret will come from
Choose “I already have a seed”
Then enter your seed words:
Once you’ve entered valid seed words the next button will become enabled and you’ll be able to proceed to the next step.
Note: If the seed words are from another wallet, like the blockchain.info wallet, Bither or Mycelium, then you have to press options and check bip39.
If the seed words are from Bither wallet then make sure you replace the hyphens in the seed phrase with spaces. It should display ‘BIP39 checksum OK” next to the options button when you’ve entered a valid bip39 seed mnemonic.
If the originating wallet is MultibitHD, Bread Wallet or Bitcoin Wallet for Android by A. Schildbach then follow the guide here instead.
If your seed words are from a bip39 wallet (i.e. not Electrum) you will be shown this window below. Choose the legacy p2pkh option if the addresses in the originating wallet begin with ‘1’, p2sh-segwit if they begin with ‘3’ and native segwit if they begin with ‘bc1’:
Note that last digit in the derivation path denotes the HD account number. If the recovered wallet does not reflect all your funds repeat the restoration process with a new wallet file and increment the last number. Do this again and again until you have recovered all HD accounts. For example: m/44’/0’/1′ to restore the second HD account, m/44’/0’/2′ for the third HD acccount etc. Note also that the single quotes in the derivation path are not optional.
Electrum now asks you to enter a password to protect your wallet file. This is optional but strongly recommended:
Finally it generates your addresses and displays the electrum window:
