Someone changed my Facebook password: how to get back in
If your password has stopped working but the email address and mobile number on the account are still yours, you are in the best version of this problem. Facebook can still reach you, which means it can still prove you are you, and most people in this position are back in within about ten minutes. The important thing is not to spend those ten minutes looking for somebody to ring.
Last checked: 15 August 2026. Every official Facebook, Instagram and Australian government link on this page was opened and confirmed working on that date. If you find one that no longer works, please tell us and we will fix it, because a dead link on a page like this is worse than no page at all.
The page you want
The official page for this situation:
https://www.facebook.com/hacked
Use this rather than the ordinary forgotten password link. It does the same reset and also walks you through what was changed.
If the code is not arriving
Two things usually explain this. Check your junk or spam folder first, because Facebook's messages land there more often than you would expect. If it still is not coming, the address on the account may have been changed without your noticing, which moves you to a different and slower route.
If that is the case, read the hacker changed my email and phone number too, which is the harder case and worth starting today.
You can also identify the account directly at facebook.com/login/identify using your name or an address you used to use.
Once you are in, do these six things
- Change the password, and change it anywhere else you used the same one. If that password was also on your email or your banking, those come first, before the social account.
- Check the recovery email address and phone number on the account and remove anything you do not recognise. This is the step people skip, and it is the reason accounts get taken a second time a week later.
- Sign out of all other sessions, so a device the attacker is still holding gets kicked off.
- Turn on two factor authentication, so a stolen password on its own is no longer enough.
- Look at what was posted or sent while they had it, so you know what your friends and family received.
- Tell the people who were messaged, ideally somewhere other than the account that was taken.
How this most likely happened
Almost always, the password was not guessed. It was already known, because it had been used on some other website that was breached years ago and it was never changed here. That is why the fourth item on that list matters more than it looks: if the same password is on your email account, fix that one first, because whoever holds your email can reset everything else you own.
The people who will contact you
- Anyone offering a phone number. There is no Meta support line. A number is the clearest single sign you are being scammed.
- Paid recovery agents. Services that promise to get your account back for a fee. They have no access Meta does not give you for free, and the usual outcome is that you pay and nothing happens.
- Anyone who messages you offering to help after you post that you have been hacked, especially on Instagram. Watching for those posts is exactly how they find people.
- Anyone asking for an upfront fee, a gift card, a voucher or a cryptocurrency payment. No legitimate service is paid this way.
- Anyone asking for your password or your two factor code. No real Meta process ever asks a person for these. Sharing the code is how the second theft happens.
- Anyone asking to remote control your computer to fix it for you, unless it is somebody you already know and trust.
- A friend asking you to receive a code for them. That friend has already been taken over, and the code is for your account.
Related pages on this site
- Start at the router , if this is not quite your situation.
- There is no Meta phone number , and what the numbers really are.
- Paid recovery services , why none of them are real.
- The full Facebook page .
- Password managers explained simply , so it cannot happen again.
Frequently asked questions
Why did my Facebook password stop working?
Usually because somebody else signed in and changed it, and the most common way they got the old one is that it was reused from another website that was breached at some point. It is rarely guessed and almost never anything you did carelessly. The practical consequence is that any other account sharing that password should be changed as well, starting with your email.
Can I just reset my password normally?
You can, and it often works, but facebook.com/hacked is the better door when somebody else has been in. It performs the same reset and also shows you what was changed while they had access, including any recovery email address or phone number they added. Skipping that check is how people get taken over a second time a week or two later.
The reset code is not arriving. What now?
Check the junk or spam folder first, as Facebook's messages often land there. If nothing appears at all, the email address on the account may have been changed as well, which puts you in the slower identity confirmation route rather than a simple reset. Start at facebook.com/login/identify to find the account by name or by details you used to have.
Should I pay someone to sort this out quickly?
No. This particular case is the quick one, so there is nothing to buy that you cannot do in about ten minutes yourself. Anybody offering to speed it up for a fee is either doing exactly what this page describes, or taking the money and disappearing, and some will ask for the login code, which hands them the account outright.