Your partner went through your phone

What to do in the first hour, what they could have seen or changed on your iPhone, and when checking your phone stops being about curiosity.

Finding out someone read your phone feels bad even if you had nothing to hide. Most of what you can do comes down to closing the way in and deciding what the moment means for the relationship.

If you feel unsafe, start here

Apple’s safety guide warns that changes you make to sharing or access may be noticed. If your partner controls money, housing or contact with other people, or you fear how they will react, talk to an advocate before you change anything. In the US, the National Domestic Violence Hotline answers at 800-799-7233, by chat on its site, or by texting START to 88788. If you think your phone is being watched, use a friend’s phone or a library computer for that conversation.

Close the way in

1. Change your passcode under Settings, then Face ID & Passcode. Choose one that nobody has watched you type.
2. On that same screen, reset Face ID if a second appearance may have been added without your permission, then set it up again.
3. Open Settings, tap your name and review the devices signed in to your Apple Account. Remove any you do not recognize.
4. Change your Apple Account password if your partner may know it.
5. Run Safety Check under Settings, then Privacy & Security, to review who and what can see your information.

Check what they could have changed

Someone who had your unlocked phone for a few minutes could have added their face, shared your location with themselves in Find My or turned on sharing to their own device. Safety Check covers much of this in one place. This guide goes through the traces worth looking for and the limits of what you can prove.

Decide what this means for you

These questions tend to clarify things:

• Did they tell you, or did you catch them?
• Was it a single moment, or is it a habit?
• Do they ask you to hand over your phone or passcode as a condition of staying calm?
• Do you now delete things or change your behavior to avoid a scene?

Repeated checking combined with pressure and fear is a recognized form of controlling behavior. This page covers monitoring in more depth.

Keep some things apart

The Hidden album opens with the phone’s passcode, so it stops working as a barrier once someone knows that code. Backroom keeps photos, videos, files and notes behind a separate pattern that your partner does not get by knowing your passcode. A vault can also be found if someone looks, and an app with a pattern screen can start an argument of its own. If that could put you at risk, weigh it with an advocate first.