If your web developer has disappeared, send one written request with a deadline, and if a week passes, recover access yourself. Go in this order: the domain first, then hosting, then the code and database, then Google and payment accounts. Most of it can be recovered without the developer if the accounts are in your name.
Developers go quiet for ordinary reasons: illness, a full-time job, a closed agency, or a dispute over an invoice. The reason matters less than what they still control. This guide is for business owners whose site or app is live, or half-built, and whose developer has stopped replying. It covers what to do first, how to get each account back, what you can and can't recover alone, a message you can send today, and how to decide whether to fix what's there. Getting access back is also the first step of every product takeover I do.
Web developer disappeared: what to do first
Work through these in order. The early steps protect the things that are hardest or impossible to rebuild; the later ones can wait a few days.
- Write down what you have.Every login you still have, every invoice you've paid, the contract, and the emails where accounts were set up. This is your proof of ownership later.
- Send one clear request.Ask for specific access by a specific date, in writing. There's a template below.
- Check the domain.Who it's registered to, at which registrar, and when it expires. If it expires soon, this jumps to the top.
- Find the hosting. Where the site runs, and who pays for it.
- Take a copy of the live site. Before anything changes, save the pages, images, and content that are visible now.
- Recover the code and the database. From the hosting account or the code repository.
- Recover everything that hangs off the domain. Google Search Console, analytics, business email, payments, and app store accounts.
- Move every account into your nameand remove the old developer's access, once you have admin rights yourself.
The domain comes first for a reason. It's the address of your website and usually your email too. If it lapses or stays in someone else's hands, you lose both, along with every link and Google ranking pointing at it. Hosting, code, and even the whole website can be rebuilt. A domain someone else controls can't.
How to get your domain back from a developer
Start with a domain lookup (search "ICANN Lookup" or use your registrar's WHOIS tool). It shows the registrar, the expiry date, and sometimes the registrant, which is the legal holder of the domain. Many registrars hide the registrant's name for privacy, so you may only see the registrar at first. What you do next depends on whose name is on it.
If the domain is in your name
This is the easy case. Go to the registrar's website and use "forgot password" with the email you think was used. If the account email was the developer's, contact the registrar's support, prove you are the registrant (business registration, ID, invoices), and ask them to change the account email to one you control. Once you're in, turn on two-factor login and check the renewal settings.
If the domain is in the developer's name
This is harder. The registrar treats the registrant as the owner, so it can't simply hand the domain to you. You need the developer to change the registrant to you or send you the transfer code (also called an auth code or EPP code). If they won't, bring your contract and invoices to a lawyer. Keep the domain renewed in the meantime, even if that means paying for it through their account.
Moving the domain to your own registrar
Once you control it, you may want to move the domain to a registrar account of your own. ICANN's registrant FAQ says your registrar must give you the transfer code within five calendar days of asking. It also says a domain usually can't move to another registrar within 60 days of a change to the registrant's name, organization, or email, though some registrars let you opt out of that lock. Domain Incite reported in 2025 that ICANN's policy council had approved removing this 60-day lock, with the change taking effect later, so check your registrar's current rules before you plan around the date.
How to get into your hosting without the developer
Hosting is the service that runs your website. To find it, look at the domain's nameservers and DNS records, the settings that tell the internet where your site lives. A DNS lookup tool shows them, and the names usually give the host away (for example, a Cloudflare, Vercel, or GoDaddy address).
Then work out whose account it is. Check your card statements. If you pay the host directly, you're the account holder, and the host's support can reset access once you prove who you are. If the developer pays for hosting and bills you, the site is probably on their account, sometimes on a shared plan with other clients' sites. In that case, you need them, or a copy of the site before their account lapses.
Website builders like Wix, Squarespace, and Shopify work the same way: the site belongs to whichever account created it. If the developer built it in their own account, they can usually transfer the site to yours from inside the builder. Ask for exactly that.
Whatever you find, save a copy of the live site now. If the hosting bill goes unpaid, the host can switch the site off, and a site that no longer loads can't be copied.
How to get your website code and database back
The code is the set of files that makes the site work. The database holds everything that changes: users, orders, bookings, form entries, and blog posts on most content management systems (CMS, the admin where you edit pages). You need both to keep running the same site.
Check for a code repository
Most developers keep code in a repository on GitHub, GitLab, or Bitbucket. Search your email for invitations from those sites. If the repository sits in an account or organization you own, you already have the code. If it sits in the developer's personal account, ask them to transfer it to yours.
Copy it from the hosting account
If you have hosting access, the code and database are on the server. A new developer can download the files and export the database from there, even if the repository is lost. For a WordPress site, this is usually everything. For a custom web app, the server may only hold a built version of the code, which runs but is hard to change, so the original source is still worth asking for.
Who owns the code
Paying for the work doesn't always mean you own the code. Your contract usually decides it. Read it before you send any demands, and if it says nothing about ownership, ask a lawyer where you are. The questions in what to ask a developer before hiring cover how to get this right in the next contract.
Recovering Google Search Console and other accounts
Once the domain is yours, most other accounts follow, because they prove ownership through the domain or its email.
Google Search Console
Search Console shows how your site does in Google search. You don't need the old developer to get in. Add your site as a property in your own Google account and verify it with a DNS record, which you can add now that you control the domain. Google's help page says a property can have any number of verified owners, and verified owners can remove each other. Remove the developer, and remove their verification record from your DNS too, or they can verify themselves again.
Google Analytics and tag manager
These are tied to a Google account, not to the domain. If the developer set them up in their account and won't add you as an admin, it's often quicker to set up a new property and accept losing the old reports than to chase the old one.
Email, payments, and app stores
- Business email(Google Workspace, Microsoft 365): often recoverable through the provider's support once you can prove you control the domain.
- Payments (Stripe, PayPal): if your company was verified as the business on the account, recover it through the provider, not the developer.
- Apple and Google developer accountsfor mobile apps: if the app was published under the developer's own account, ask them to transfer the app to yours. They have to do it from their side, which is why this one needs their reply.
What you can recover without the developer
The question that decides everything is whose name each account is in. Use this table to see where you stand.
| Account | In your name | In the developer's name |
|---|---|---|
| Domain | Recover through the registrar with proof of identity | Needs the developer, or a legal route |
| Hosting | Recover through the host's support | Needs the developer; copy the live site meanwhile |
| Code repository | Already yours | Needs a transfer, or copy from the server |
| Database | Export it from your hosting account | Needs the developer or their host |
| Search Console | Verify yourself through DNS | Same: verify yourself once you control the domain |
| Analytics | Recover through Google | Usually quicker to start a new property |
| Payments | Recover through the provider | Rare; set up a new account in your company's name |
| App store listing | Recover through Apple or Google | Needs the developer to start a transfer |
If most of your rows sit in the first column, you'll be back in control within days, and a new developer can pick up where the old one stopped. If the domain or the code sits in the second column, that's where to spend your effort and, if needed, a lawyer's time.
A message to send a developer who stopped replying
Send this by email, so there's a dated record, and by whatever channel they used to reply fastest. Keep it short and neutral. People who have gone quiet out of embarrassment are more likely to answer a calm message than an angry one, and if it ends up in a dispute, a polite written request reads better.
The line about invoices matters. If the silence is about money, it gives them an easy way to reply. If a week passes with no answer, stop waiting and work through the steps above.
Mistakes that make website recovery harder
- Letting the domain expire while you wait. Check the expiry date on day one and renew it however you can.
- Changing DNS or nameservers before you have a copy. Pointing the domain somewhere new can take the old site offline before anyone has saved it, and can break your email.
- Stopping the hosting payment to force a reply. The host deletes the site, and you lose it too.
- Paying a stranger to "hack back" the site. Use the registrar's and host's own recovery processes. They exist for exactly this.
- Letting the next developer set everything up in their name.That's how you got here. Every new account should be yours, with the developer added as a user you can remove.
- Deciding to rebuild before you know what you have. Recovered code is often worth more than it looks from the outside.
Fix what the old developer left, or start again?
Once you have access, the next question is whether what the old developer left is worth keeping. Don't decide from the outside. A developer should read the code first, and on my takeovers that review costs $2,500–6,000, which comes off the project price if you continue. The full decision is in take over or rewrite a live product.
Two of my takeovers started close to this: an agency had left the product half-built, and the client needed someone to pick it up. On the social challenge app, the foundation wouldn't scale and the app had to move real money, so I kept what worked, rewrote the rest, and finished it in 8 weeks for $16,000. It now has 10,000 users. On the local news app, I kept what worked and finished the app, the editor tools, and both app store releases in 12 weeks for $25,000. It has 50K downloads. Neither started again from nothing. What a takeover costs at each stage is in the app takeover cost guide.
For a simple marketing website, the answer is often different. If the site is dated and the code is lost, rebuilding the pages is cheaper than recovering and patching old code, and redesign or start over covers how to keep your Google rankings when you do.
How to stop a developer holding your website again
Every one of these problems comes from accounts in someone else's name. The fix is the same whichever developer you hire next: every account belongs to you, and the developer is a user you can remove.
Once you have access back, go through the full website handover checklist to catch anything still in the old developer's name. It covers each of these accounts and how to check it's yours.
More on what to own after launch, and what ongoing support costs, is in what website maintenance costs.
If your developer is gone and you're not sure what you still control, send me what you can log into. I'll help you work out where everything lives and what to recover first.
