Your developer disappeared. Here is what to do, step by step

First 48 hours: secure everything that is yours

Before anything else, make sure you control the accounts your business runs on. A developer who has gone quiet usually still holds the keys, and access is much harder to recover after something expires or gets deleted.

• —Domain registrar — the account where your domain name is registered. This one matters most: whoever controls the domain controls your website and your email.
• —Hosting or cloud account — where the site or app actually runs (a hosting panel, AWS, Google Cloud, Vercel, Cloudflare and so on).
• —Code repository — GitHub, GitLab or Bitbucket. Check whether the code is in your account or in the developer's.
• —App store accounts — Apple App Store Connect and Google Play Console, if you have a mobile app.
• —Paid services connected to the product — payments, email sending, maps, analytics, AI APIs.
• —Admin panels — the CMS or the product's own admin area.

Wherever you can, add yourself as the owner, change the passwords and turn on two-factor authentication. Do not delete anything and do not cancel any service yet — you do not know what depends on what.

Take stock of what you actually have

Once access is safe, write down the real state of things. Half an hour with a notebook is enough:

• —Where the code lives, and whether it is the latest version or an old copy.
• —Where the data lives — the database, uploaded files — and whether there are backups.
• —Which services the product depends on, and who pays for each of them.
• —What your contract says about who owns the code and the design.
• —What works today, what is broken, and what was never finished.

This list is what anyone who takes over will need first. Having it ready saves you time and money whatever you decide next.

Ask for a handover once more — in writing

People disappear for all sorts of reasons: burnout, illness, too many projects. One calm, specific message often works better than a string of angry ones. Ask for exactly what you need and give a reasonable deadline:

• —Access to the code repository, or the full source code as an archive.
• —A copy of the database.
• —Every login and API key the product uses.
• —Short notes on how the product is deployed.

Keep the correspondence. If the contract assigns the code to you and the developer refuses to hand it over, that record is what a lawyer will ask for.

If you cannot get the code back

It feels like a disaster, but it rarely is. There are a few ways back:

• —If the hosting account is in your name, the files are usually there — the hosting provider can help you download them.
• —A simple website can often be saved straight from the live pages.
• —The database can usually be exported from the hosting or cloud account, even without the code.
• —In the worst case, the working product itself is the best specification you could ask for. Rebuilding something that already exists and whose users you know is much faster than building from scratch.

Rescue the old product or rebuild it?

Once you know what you have, the choice is usually clear.

1. Rescue it if

   the code is available and up to date, it is built on a common modern stack, and another developer can read it without weeks of archaeology.

2. Rebuild it if

   the code is missing or outdated, every small change turns into a large invoice, or the product is so tangled that nobody wants to touch it.

With AI tools, rebuilding costs a fraction of what it did a few years ago. That changes the maths: a clean rebuild on a simple stack is often cheaper than paying someone to untangle code nobody understands.

Replace the dependency, not just the developer

Hiring the next developer on the same terms puts you back where you started, just with a different name on the invoices. What actually protects the business:

• —Every account is registered to you — the developer gets access, not ownership.
• —The code is in a repository you own.
• —The product is built on a simple stack that anyone, including AI, can work with.
• —You or someone on your team can make everyday changes yourselves — with AI, that no longer requires a technical background.

How YourLastDev handles it

This is exactly the situation we work with. We look at what is left — code, accounts, data — and tell you honestly whether to rescue or rebuild. Then we build the new product on a simple stack, move everything into accounts you own, and personally teach you to maintain it with AI, so you never have to chase a developer again.

It is one fixed price, $450, for any website or web app, whatever its size. That includes the analysis, the new product, one-on-one AI training and an AI automation plan for your business.