How to check your phone for monitoring
Most people who search this are fine — an unfamiliar setting or a run-down battery is rarely spyware.
But the checks below are real, they are free, and they cover the ways a phone actually gets monitored.
Work through them calmly.
Remember the caveat above: they show signs of monitoring, not a guarantee your phone is clean.
iPhone
- Run Safety Check.Settings → Privacy & Security → Safety Check lets you review and stop sharing your location, photos, and account access with other people and apps — and Emergency Reset cuts all sharing at once.
- Look for a rogue configuration profile or MDM.Settings → General → VPN & Device Management. A non-jailbroken iPhone is hard to monitor, so an unexpected profile or “device management” entry you didn’t add is the single most important thing to find here.
- Review the devices on your Apple Accountand remove any you don’t recognize, then change your Apple Account password.
- Consider Lockdown Modeif you may be a target of advanced spyware — it is the built-in defense Apple ships for exactly that, with honest trade-offs (some features are limited).
Android
- Run Play Protect.Open the Play Store → your profile → Play Protect → Scan. It checks installed and sideloaded apps for known stalkerware.
- Audit Accessibility services.Settings → Accessibility. Stalkerware abuses Accessibility to read your screen and capture keystrokes — turn off anything you don’t recognize.
- Check device-admin apps and hidden apps.Look under Settings → Security for device-admin apps that resist uninstall, and watch for apps disguised with generic names like “System Service” or “Device Health.” Confirm Install unknown apps (the sideload path) is off for browsers and messaging apps.
Unknown trackers (AirTags and the like)
If you think you’re being followed by a hidden tracker, both platforms now help.
iPhone shows unwanted-tracker alerts for AirTags (since iOS 14.5) and for any standards-based Bluetooth tracker (since iOS 17.5).
Android shows cross-platform unknown-tracker alerts that detect AirTags too, through its Find Hub network, and Apple publishes a Tracker Detect app for Android if you want to scan actively.
Found one? Don’t try to identify the owner yourself — note where you are and report the serial number to police.
What the self-checks can’t tell you
Consumer stalkerware (the mSpy / FlexiSPY tier) usually leaves the kinds of signs above. Mercenary spyware — Pegasus and its peers — is a different problem: it is effectively undetectable by any consumer self-checkand needs forensic acquisition and indicator-of-compromise analysis, the kind of work Amnesty International’s Security Lab pioneered. Journalists and other targeted professionals facing that threat class can start with Newsroom Device Compromise Response. Symptoms like battery drain are suggestive, never diagnostic. If the stakes are high — an abusive partner, a legal case, or a credible targeted threat — that’s when a professional exam earns its place. The Coalition Against Stalkerware has survivor-first guidance worth reading before you act.
When to get a professional involved
If a self-check turns up something you can’t explain, if a current or former partner may be monitoring you, or if you may need the findings for a protective order, custody case, or police report, that’s the moment for a forensic exam — before anything is removed or reset.
A credentialed examiner preserves the evidence and produces court-ready documentation your attorney or DV advocate can use — see our professional digital forensics for individuals.
Start with domestic-violence digital forensics if a partner may be involved.
If you’re in danger right now, the survivor page above has Quick Exit and the hotline.
And if you are past the checking stage: when you have found monitoring software and want it gone safely, how to remove stalkerware, step by step sequences removal so it doesn’t cost you evidence or safety.
When you know someone had access to your phone — a partner, an ex — what to do if someone has access to your phone walks the recovery order.
