What to Do If Your Email Has Been Hacked (And What Happens Next)

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You get a password reset email for an account you didn’t touch. Then another one.

A few minutes later, a friend texts you asking why you just sent them a weird link. You open your inbox and there are emails in your Sent folder you never wrote.

That’s usually the exact moment people realize something is very wrong.

If you’re here because you think your email has been hacked, take a breath – this is fixable, and you’re not the first person it’s happened to. But don’t sit on it either. The longer a hacker sits in your inbox, the more damage they can do.

Your email isn’t just email. It’s the master key to your entire digital life – your banking app, your Amazon account, your social media, your cloud storage. Most of those accounts can be reset using your email address. So when your email gets hacked, the real danger usually isn’t the inbox itself. It’s everything connected to it.

People search “what to do if your email has been hacked” every day and most guides give them a vague checklist that doesn’t actually tell them where to click. This one does. Here’s what to do, in the order that actually matters.

Quick Answer

If you think your email has been hacked, do this now:

1. Change your password immediately
2. Sign out of all devices
3. Enable two-factor authentication
4. Check your account recovery settings
5. Look for suspicious forwarding rules
6. Secure linked accounts (banking, shopping, social)
7. Watch for signs of identity theft

Full instructions for each step of what to do if your email has been hacked including exactly where to click in Gmail, Outlook, and Apple Mail are below.

What to Do If Your Email Has Been Hacked

This is the part you came for. Work through these in order. Don’t skip ahead.

1. Change Your Password Right Now

If you can still log in, do this first, before anything else.

Pick something:

• Unique, not used anywhere else, ever
• Long, aim for 16+ characters if the provider allows it
• Nothing close to your old password

Don’t just swap “Summer2023!” for “Summer2026!” Hackers who’ve had access to your account may already know your old password patterns. Make it genuinely different.

2. Sign Out of All Devices

Here’s the part most people get wrong: changing your password doesn’t automatically kick anyone out who’s already logged in. If a hacker is still sitting inside your account on another device, your shiny new password does nothing for them. You have to physically sign them out.

Gmail:

1. Scroll to the very bottom of your inbox
2. Click “Last account activity” in the bottom right corner
3. Click “Sign out of all other web sessions”

Outlook:

1. Go to Settings → View all Outlook settings → General → Privacy and data
2. Manage active sessions from your Microsoft account security page

Apple Mail / iCloud:

1. Go to appleid.apple.com
2. Scroll to Devices
3. Remove anything you don’t recognize — this signs it out instantly

While you’re in there, actually look at the list. An unfamiliar city, a device name you’ve never seen, a login timestamped 3am while you were asleep that’s your hacker’s fingerprint. Write it down. It’ll matter if you need to report this later.

3. Enable Two-Factor Authentication

If you don’t already have this on, turn it on now. It’s the single best thing you can do to stop this from happening again.

Two-factor authentication means even if someone steals your password down the line, they still need a second code usually sent to your phone to get in. Turn it on for your email first, then your banking apps, then social media.

4. Check Account Recovery Information

This is the sneaky one. A smart attacker doesn’t just read your email and leave, they quietly swap your recovery phone number or recovery email first. That way, even after you change your password and feel safe, they’ve still got a backdoor in.

Go check right now.

Gmail:

1. Go to myaccount.google.com/security
2. Check Recovery phone and Recovery email
3. If either one isn’t yours, remove it and add your own

Outlook:

1. Go to account.microsoft.com/security → Security info
2. Review every phone number and email listed. Remove anything unfamiliar

Apple ID:

1. Go to appleid.apple.com → Account Recovery
2. Confirm your trusted phone numbers are actually yours

If you find a recovery method you didn’t add, that’s your confirmation: this wasn’t random. Someone planned to get back in.

5. Look for Suspicious Forwarding Rules

This is the step almost everyone skips and it’s the one that lets a hacker keep reading your email long after you think you’ve locked them out.

Here’s how it works: an attacker quietly sets up a rule that copies every email you receive to an address you’ve never heard of. You change your password, feel safe, move on with your day and they’re still reading everything, just one step removed. No login required on their end. No alert on yours.

Check it right now, on whichever provider you use.

Gmail:

1. Click the gear icon (top right) → See all settings
2. Go to the Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab
3. Look under “Forwarding” — if there’s an address you don’t recognize, delete it
4. While you’re there, check Filters and Blocked Addresses too. Hackers love hiding rules in filters that auto-delete or auto-forward emails from your bank

Outlook / Hotmail:

1. Go to Settings (gear icon) → Mail → Forwarding
2. Check if forwarding is turned on, and to what address
3. Also check Rules under Mail settings delete anything you didn’t create

Apple Mail / iCloud:

1. Go to icloud.com → Mail → Settings (gear icon) → Rules
2. Remove any rule you don’t recognize

If you find a forwarding rule you didn’t set up, that’s confirmation someone was in your account. Delete it, then go back and change your password again just in case they re-enter through the same hole they used the first time.

6. Secure Linked Accounts

Your email connects to more than you probably think – banking apps, PayPal, Amazon, Apple ID, Facebook, Instagram, streaming services, work accounts. If your email was hacked, assume the attacker tried using it as a key to open those doors too.

Start with the accounts that matter most:

• Banking and payment apps
• Amazon and other shopping accounts
• Social media accounts
• Anything tied to your finances or identity

Change passwords on those too, and turn on two-factor authentication wherever it’s offered. The goal is simple: stop one compromised account from becoming five.

7. Warn Your Contacts

If strange emails went out from your account, let people know fast. A two-line message (“hey, my email got hacked, ignore anything weird from me today”) can stop a friend or coworker from clicking a scam link they’d otherwise trust because it came from you.

What If You Can’t Get Into Your Email Account?

If the hacker changed your password before you could act, don’t Panic. Every major provider has an account recovery process built for exactly this.

You’ll typically need:

• A backup recovery email or phone number
• A previous password you remember
• Some form of identity verification

Move fast. The longer someone else controls the account, the more time they have to dig through it, change settings, and cause damage elsewhere. Recovery pages for Gmail, Outlook, and Apple ID are all a quick search away. Go now, read this later if you need to.

Signs Your Email Has Been Hacked

Sometimes it’s obvious. Sometimes it’s quiet enough to miss for weeks.

Common signs include:

• You suddenly can’t log in
• Your password stops working without you changing it
• Password reset emails arrive for accounts you didn’t touch
• Friends mention strange emails “from you”
• Emails go missing from your inbox
• Login activity shows unfamiliar locations
• Security settings have changed without your input
• A device you don’t recognize shows up in your account activity

If even one of these rings true, treat your account as compromised until you’ve checked thoroughly. Better to overreact than miss it.

What Happens If Your Email Gets Hacked? What They Can Actually Do

This is the part people underestimate. A hacked email account isn’t just an inbox problem — it’s a foothold.

They can reset passwords on other accounts. Most online services use email-based recovery. One compromised inbox can cascade into banking apps, shopping accounts, cloud storage, and social media all reset using the access they already have.

They can read everything sitting in your inbox. Years of financial statements, tax documents, travel bookings, medical letters, personal conversations. Even old emails you forgot existed can hand a criminal exactly what they need.

They can impersonate you. Sending scam links, fake emergencies, or money requests from your actual email address to people who trust you and have no reason to suspect it isn’t really you.

They can gather what they need for identity theft. Full name, address, phone number, financial details your inbox is often a goldmine of exactly the information identity thieves are looking for.

Should You Be Worried About Identity Theft?

Possibly and it’s worth taking seriously rather than hoping for the best.

Not every hacked email leads to identity theft. But your inbox typically holds enough personal detail billing information, account confirmations, password reset trails to build a real profile of you. If someone had access for any length of time, treat identity monitoring as a sensible next step, not an overreaction.

Related guide:

How to Recover from Identity Theft: Step-by-Step Guide

How to Freeze Your Credit After Identity Theft

How Aura Can Help After an Email Hack

Here’s the uncomfortable truth most “what to do” guides skip over: changing your password doesn’t undo what already happened.

By the time you’ve locked the hacker out, they may have already read years of financial statements, tax documents, medical letters, and account confirmations sitting in your inbox. You can secure the account. You can’t un-ring that bell.

So the real question isn’t “how do I get my email back.” It’s what is someone going to do with what they already saw?

That’s not something you can monitor by refreshing your inbox every hour. You need something watching the places identity thieves actually operate, the dark web, breach databases, credit applications filed in your name.

This is exactly what Aura is built for. It watches your identity, not just your inbox:

• Dark web monitoring: if your email, passwords, or personal details show up for sale, you’re alerted immediately, not months later
• Credit monitoring: catches new accounts or credit applications opened in your name before they spiral
• Financial fraud alerts: flags suspicious transactions tied to your identity
• $1M identity theft insurance: because if something does go wrong, you’re not covering the cleanup cost alone
• White-glove fraud resolution support: a real person helps you fix it, not a help-desk ticket queue

If your email was compromised even briefly, you genuinely don’t know what was seen. That uncertainty is exactly the gap Aura is built to close.

→ Try Aura free for 14 days and get eyes on your identity before someone else takes advantage of it.

The password reset took you five minutes. This takes about the same and it’s the part most people skip, right up until it’s too late to.

How to Prevent Future Email Hacks

No security measure is perfect, but these habits cut your risk significantly.

Use a password manager. It creates and stores strong, unique passwords for every account, so you stop reusing the same one everywhere which is how one leak turns into ten compromised accounts.

Turn on two-factor authentication everywhere. Still one of the most effective things you can do, full stop.

Be skeptical of unexpected emails asking you to log in. Most email hacks start with a convincing fake login page. Hover over links before clicking. When in doubt, type the website address directly instead.

Do a quick security check every few months. Login activity, recovery settings, forwarding rules, connected devices. It just takes five minutes, twice a year, catches problems before they become disasters.

Final Thoughts

If you’re still working out what to do if your email has been hacked, the most important thing right now is speed. Change your password, sign out every device, lock down recovery settings, hunt down forwarding rules, and secure anything connected to that inbox.

A hacked email account is never just an email problem. It’s a doorway into your finances, your social accounts, your identity. Closing that doorway fast and checking what might have already walked through it, is what actually protects you here, not just the password reset.

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