They know what is in my messages: how that happens on iPhone
If someone quotes your messages back to you, or knows about an email, or has seen a photo you did not send them, there is a small number of likely explanations. Hidden software is only one of them, and it is not the most common.
Here they are, roughly in order of how often they turn out to be the answer.
1. They know your password
The simplest explanation, and the most common one. If someone has your password, they do not need to touch your phone at all. They can sign in from their own.
Please read the warning below before you change any password. Changing one is visible, and the timing matters.
Your email account is the important one. Whoever controls your email can reset the password on almost everything else. If you change one thing, change that, and change it from a device you trust, not from the phone you are worried about.
Using Android instead? Read the Android version of this page.
Before you change anything, please read this
If someone is monitoring you, the moment they lose that access is often the moment things get more dangerous. Family violence services see this pattern often enough that it shapes all of their advice.
So, three things before you touch a setting:
- Do not uninstall an app you suspect, and do not factory reset your phone, as your first move. It can tell the other person that you know.
- Removing it also removes the proof. If you might ever want to go to the police, that proof matters.
- Talk to someone first. 1800RESPECT is free, confidential and open 24 hours, on 1800 737 732. Call from a phone you trust, not from the one you are worried about.
None of this means you have to keep a phone you do not trust. It means the order matters, and the safest order starts with a plan and a person, not with a delete button.
One more thing worth knowing now. Talking about this near the phone can be enough. If monitoring software is running, it may be able to hear the room. Have this conversation somewhere else, or on another device.
2. They are signed in on their own device
Open Settings and tap your name. Scroll down and you will see every device signed into your Apple Account. Look for a device you do not recognise, one you sold or gave away, or one belonging to the person you are worried about.
3. Your messages are arriving somewhere else
This one surprises people. If they have a Mac, an iPad or another iPhone signed into your Apple Account, your messages may be landing there too.
Check Settings, then Apps, then Messages, then Text Message Forwarding (on older iPhones, Messages sits directly in the main Settings list). Anything switched on here is receiving your texts. Then check Settings, Apps, Messages, Send & Receive to see which addresses and numbers your iMessages go to.
4. App specific passwords and trusted numbers
At account.apple.com, check your trusted phone numbers under sign in and security. A number you do not recognise there means someone else can receive your verification codes. Revoke any app specific passwords you did not create.
5. iCloud and shared albums
Settings, your name, then iCloud. Check what is syncing, and check Shared Albums in Photos for albums you did not make.
6. Family Sharing
Settings, your name, then Family Sharing (shown as Family on some versions). Family arrangements share more than people expect, including purchases and location.
7. Your browser is syncing
If Safari is syncing through an Apple Account that someone else can reach, your history, saved passwords and open tabs may be visible to them.
8. WhatsApp on another screen
Open WhatsApp, Settings, then Linked devices. Sign out anything you do not recognise.
9. Safety Check
On iOS 16 and later, Settings, Privacy & Security, then Safety Check reviews all of the sharing above in one place.
Two that have nothing to do with your phone
A shared phone plan. The account holder on a mobile plan can usually see numbers called and messaged, and the times. Not the content, but often enough to cause real harm.
A shared streaming, shopping or cloud account. These leak more than people expect, including addresses, order history and what you watched and when.
Before you start changing passwords
Changing everything at once is visible. Being locked out is exactly the kind of thing that tells someone you know.
If that could be dangerous for you, please talk to 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732 first, from a phone you trust. If you do go ahead, do it from a device you trust, start with your email, and do it in one planned session rather than gradually.
What this page will not do
We will not tell you your phone is clean. Nobody honest can.
Monitoring software that is any good is built to hide, and the reliable way to find it is a forensic examination of the phone, usually done by police. Any website or app promising to scan your phone and give you a yes or no answer is overselling what it can do, and most of them are selling something. We are a not-for-profit and there is nothing to buy at the end of this.
Next: what to do, in a safe order
Where to get real help
- In immediate danger: call 000.
- 1800RESPECT: 1800 737 732. Free, confidential, 24 hours, by phone or online chat. For anyone affected by domestic, family or sexual violence.
- Police assistance line: 131 444, for threats to your safety that are not an emergency.
- WESNET Safety Net Australia: techsafety.org.au. Specialists in technology and family violence. If you use an Android phone and you think spyware may be on it, they ask people to contact them from a safe device.
- eSafety Commissioner: esafety.gov.au. The national regulator. It has legal powers to help with serious online abuse, including image-based abuse.