Wallet Cleanup

Everything on Solana lives in accounts: your wallet, each token you hold, every app's data. Storing data on thousands of computers isn't free, so each account must hold a minimum SOL balance for its size. People call this rent.

• Today accounts must be rent-exempt: the deposit is locked once when the account opens, and nothing is charged over time.
• The deposit is refundable. When an account is closed, all of its SOL goes back to a wallet chosen by the account's owner.
• A standard token account is 165 bytes, which locks 0.00203928 SOL (Solana's docs). Newer Token-2022 accounts lock slightly more, about 0.00207 SOL. The exact number depends on the network's rate, so treat "about 0.002 SOL" as the rule of thumb.

Source: Solana docs: Create a Token Account.

Your wallet doesn't hold tokens directly. For each token, there's a separate token account (usually an "associated token account") linked to your wallet.

• Buying or receiving a token for the first time opens a new token account and locks the deposit, usually paid by you.
• Selling everything doesn't close it. The account stays open with a zero balance, and the deposit stays locked.
• Spam airdrops and leftover "dust" (tiny balances worth nothing) open accounts too.

Someone who has traded a lot of memecoins can end up with dozens or hundreds of empty accounts. 100 empty accounts is about 0.2 SOL locked as rent, before any tool's fee.

The Token Program has a CloseAccount instruction. It deletes a token account and sends all its SOL, including the rent deposit, to a wallet you choose.

1. The balance must be zero. If there's dust left, it has to be burned (destroyed forever) or sent away first. That's what "burn and close" means.
2. You, the owner, must sign the close transaction in your wallet. No tool can close your accounts without that signature.
3. The SOL lands in your wallet in the same transaction.

Doing it with a tool

Cleanup tools such as RefundYourSOL scan your public address for empty accounts, build the close (and optional burn) transaction, and ask you to sign it in your own wallet (Phantom, Solflare and so on). They charge a fee out of the SOL you get back. RefundYourSOL lists 15% as its base fee, with "fee matching" down to about 2% and further discounts for its own token holders. Other tools charge different rates, so compare.

You can also close accounts yourself. Some wallets have a built-in cleanup, and developers can use Solana's spl-token close command, with no third-party fee.

Sources: Solana docs: Close Token Account · RefundYourSOL security page.

Wallet "cleanup" and "claim" pages are a favourite disguise for wallet drainers. Run through this every time. These ticks reset each time you open the page.

• I opened the tool from its official link or typed the address myself, and checked the spelling letter by letter.
• Nobody asked for my seed phrase or private key. (If they did, I closed the page.)
• I read the transaction in my wallet before signing: it only closes accounts or burns what I picked, and sends SOL back to my own wallet.
• I'm not burning any token or NFT I'm unsure about. When in doubt, I leave it.
• I won't approve anything that asks to transfer my SOL or tokens elsewhere or to give "unlimited" permissions.
• I'm not rushing because a site or DM says it's urgent.