Yes, you can, provided you can still log into your wallet normally. As long as you still have your master key, changing the guardian list is just a regular wallet management operation and does not require the missing guardian to cooperate.
Step 1: Make Sure You Still Control Your Wallet
The prerequisite for replacing a guardian is that you can still send an on-chain transaction.
What to do: Log into your wallet normally using your existing master key (seed phrase, passkey, or hardware wallet) and confirm you can sign and send transactions.
Completion standard: The wallet shows a normal balance, and you successfully send a test transaction (for example, sending 0 ETH to yourself).
If your master key is also lost: You will need to go through the social recovery process. First, contact the remaining online guardians to reach the threshold and complete recovery, then change the guardians afterward. If the lost guardian causes the remaining guardian count to fall below the threshold, wallets like UniPass allow you to initiate recovery with two email addresses; once the weight exceeds 50, a time-locked recovery starts and takes effect after 48 hours.
High risk warning: Do not change guardians while a recovery is in progress. Once you start social recovery (someone sends a recovery request), some wallets lock the guardian list until the recovery is completed or cancelled. Attempting to modify the list during this lock period could allow the entire recovery transaction to be front-run maliciously, leading to account theft. So if you have your master key, change the list first before doing anything else.
Step 2: Go to the Wallet's Guardian Management Page
Different wallets have different paths, but the logic is the same.
What to do: In the wallet's "Settings" or "Security" menu, find "Guardian Management" or "Social Recovery". For example, in Candide Wallet, the owner can use
addGuardianWithThresholdto add a new guardian andrevokeGuardianWithThresholdto remove an old one.Completion standard: You can see the list of all current guardian addresses.
Step 3: Remove the Lost Member and Add a New One
What to do:
Click "Remove" or "Revoke" and select the lost guardian's address, sign and pay a gas fee to complete the on-chain change.
Click "Add" or "Add Guardian" and enter the new member's address, set the weight if needed, sign and pay another gas fee.
(Optional) Check whether you need to adjust the threshold at the same time. For example, if the original setup was 3/5 and now 4 guardians remain, you might want to change the threshold to 3/4, which requires a separate transaction to modify.
Completion standard: You can see two transaction records on a block explorer: RevokeGuardian and AddGuardian, and the guardian list has been updated.
Common Reasons for Failure
Insufficient gas: Changing the guardian list is usually more expensive than a normal transfer. If the wallet estimates gas too low, the transaction will fail. Manually increase the gas limit by about 20% to leave enough room.
Accidentally adding a malicious address: When adding a guardian, always double-check every character of the address. Attackers often use "address poisoning" – placing a similar-looking address in your transaction history to trick you into copying it. Vitalik Buterin himself stresses that guardians should ideally not know each other and should use different operating systems and wallet types to reduce collusion risk.
After You've Completed the Operation
How to verify: Go back to the guardian management page and confirm the list is updated and the threshold is correct. Then contact the new member to let them confirm their address is correct and they can sign.
Next step: If you don't plan to use social recovery for now and the current guardian count meets the minimum threshold, it's a good idea to turn off the "recovery state" or cancel any ongoing recovery request. Some wallets allow the owner to cancel any pending recovery request at any time, preventing the old list from being misused.
