If your YouTube channel is hacked, it usually means hackers made unauthorized changes to your channel and its associated Google Account. After you recover your Google Account, you can start cleaning up your YouTube channel to undo unauthorized changes. There are two ways to clean up your channel:
- Use the cleanup tool in YouTube Studio (limited to channel owners and managers)
- Manually clean up the channel
Use the cleanup tool in YouTube Studio
YouTube Studio's cleanup tool shows a list of unusual activities on your channel so you can review them all at once and decide what to do next.
When you confirm a change wasn't made by you, the tool suggests next steps and can correct the change. You can also review channel permissions in the tool, so you can quickly remove access or make adjustments if needed.
Manually clean up a channel
When a YouTube channel is hacked, the most frequent changes hackers make can be found in uploads, channel permissions, and channel info. To undo any unauthorized changes:
- Take action on unauthorized uploads
- Remove unknown users
- Restore your channel's basic info and branding
To ensure a thorough review of your channel and its associated Google account, it's also important to check for other changes a hacker may have made.
- Turn on Enhanced Safe Browsing
- Set up 2-Step Verification with a passkey
- Add account recovery options
Get additional help from YouTube
If your channel is eligible (for example, if you’re in the YouTube Partner Program), once you recover your Google Account, you can get in touch with the YouTube Creator Support team for help.
If you’re not eligible for Creator Support, you can get help from @TeamYouTube on Twitter.