Secure your YouTube account

Securing your YouTube account helps prevent your account from being hacked, hijacked, or compromised.

Note: If you think your account has been hacked, follow these steps to secure it.

Secure Your YouTube Account

Create a strong password & keep it safe

Create a strong password

A strong password helps you keep your personal information safe and prevents someone else from getting into your account. 

Create a strong and complex password: Use 8 characters or more. It can be any combination of letters, numbers, and symbols.

Make your password unique: Do not use your YouTube account password on other sites. If another site gets hacked, the password could be used to enter your YouTube account.

Avoid personal information and common words: Do not use personal information like your birthdays, common words like “password,” or common patterns like “1234.”

Protect your password from hackers

Get notified when you enter your password on a non-Google site by turning on Password Alert for Chrome. For example, you'll be notified if you enter your password on a site that impersonates Google, and then you can change your YouTube account password.

Manage your passwords

A password manager can help you create and manage strong, unique passwords. Try using Chrome’s or another trusted password manager.

Tip: To find out if any passwords saved in your Google Account may be exposed, are weak, or are reused for multiple accounts, use Password Checkup.

Never share your login info

Never give out your passwords. YouTube will never ask for your password in an email, message, or phone call. YouTube will never send a form asking for personal information such as identity number, financial data, or passwords.

Do a regular security checkup

Go to the Security Checkup page to get personalized security recommendations for your account and follow these tips to make your account more secure.

Add or update account recovery options

Your recovery phone number and email address can be used to:

• Block someone from using your account without your permission
• Alert you if there’s suspicious activity on your account
• Recover your account if you’re ever locked out

Learn how to add or change your recovery phone number or email address.

Turn on 2-Step Verification

2-Step Verification helps prevent a hacker from getting into your account, even if they steal your password. Here are your options: 

• Security keys (Most secure verification step)
• Google Prompts (More secure than text message codes)
• Google Authenticator Application (Receive codes without internet or mobile data)

Security keys are a stronger verification option because they help prevent phishing techniques that use text message codes.

Turn on 2-Step Verification for your account.

Remove suspicious people from your account 

If you don't recognize the people managing your account, your account may have been hacked, and someone is verifying ownership of your account to gain something. You can change or remove people depending on your account type.

• Change or remove access from your YouTube Account
• Change or remove access from your Brand Account

Remove sites and apps you don’t need

To protect your YouTube account, avoid installing unknown apps or apps from unknown sources. Manage and remove any apps you don’t need from your connected accounts.

Update your software and backup your account

If your browser, operating system, or apps are out-of-date, the software might not be safe from hackers. Keep your software updated and backup your account regularly.

Protect against suspicious messages & content

Phishing is when a hacker disguises themself as someone trustworthy to take personal information, like financial data, a national ID/social security number, or credit card numbers.

Hackers may pretend to be institutions, family members, or colleagues by using emails, text messages, web pages, and more.

YouTube will never ask you for your password, email address, or other account information. Don't be fooled if someone contacts you pretending to be from YouTube.
 

Avoid suspicious requests

• Don’t reply to suspicious emails, texts, instant messages, webpages, or phone calls that ask for your personal or financial info.
• Don’t click links in emails, messages, webpages, or pop-ups from untrustworthy websites or senders.
• YouTube emails only come from @youtube.com or @google.com addresses.

_{An example of a suspicious phishing email}

Avoid suspicious web pages

Google Chrome and Search are designed to warn you about suspicious content and unwanted software.

Learn how to manage these warnings in Chrome and Search.

Report spam or phishing

To protect yourself against phishing, never enter your password on any page except myaccounts.google.com. If you find videos on YouTube that you think might be spam or phishing, please flag them for review by the YouTube team. For more information on spam and phishing please visit the National Cyber Security Alliance.

Tip: Learn more about phishing with our phishing quiz.

Set & check permissions on your channel

If you’re a creator, you can invite someone else to manage your YouTube channel without giving access to your Google Account. Invite someone to access their channel as a:

• Manager: Can add or remove others and edit channel details.
• Editor: Can edit all channel details. 
• Viewer: Can view (but not edit) all channel details. 
• Viewer (limited): Can view (but not edit) all channel details except revenue information. 

Learn how to set and check your channel permissions.

Note: If you have a Brand account, you can invite someone to manage your Google account and your YouTube channel. Learn to see if you have a Brand account and learn how to manage Brand account permissions.