How to check and revoke token approvals on Solana

Solana does have token approvals: each token account in your wallet can name one "delegate" allowed to move up to a set amount of that token. You remove one by signing a revoke transaction, either in Solflare's built-in Spending Approvals screen or with a revoke tool such as Famous Fox's Revoker, which Phantom's help centre points to. Revoking costs a small network fee. But most Solana wallets are not drained through old approvals: they are emptied by one malicious transaction signed in the moment, or by a leaked recovery phrase, and revoking cannot undo either.

Before It Rugs is not affiliated with Phantom, Solflare or any revoke tool, and we have not audited any of them. These steps follow their help pages at the time of writing (October 2026). Labels move, so check if something looks different.

Does Solana have token approvals like Ethereum?

Yes, but they work differently. On Solana, a token account holds one delegate and one approved amount at a time, and approving a new delegate replaces the old one. The delegate can transfer or burn tokens up to that amount without asking you again (Solana docs).

	Ethereum	Solana
How many approvals per token	Many, one per spender	One delegate per token account
Typical amount	Often unlimited	Any amount, up to your full balance
How you remove it	Revoke per spender	Revoke clears the delegate and resets the amount to zero

Fewer approvals does not mean safer. One approval for your full balance, slipped into a "claim" or "mint" transaction, is enough to empty that token later.

Step by step: checking and revoking approvals

Open the tool from a bookmark or an address you typed. In Solflare, go to Settings, then Security and Privacy, then Spending Approvals. For Phantom, its help centre links to Famous Fox's Revoker at famousfoxes.com/revoker. Never use a revoke link sent to you in a message or reply: fake "revoke" sites are a common drainer trick.
Connect the wallet you want to check. Connecting and scanning only reads your accounts. Nothing changes until you sign.
Review the list. For each approval, look at the token, the delegate address and the approved amount. Anything you do not recognise, or no longer need, can go.
Choose what to revoke. Select individual approvals, or revoke them all.
Read the wallet preview. A revoke should not send any tokens or SOL out of your wallet apart from the network fee. If the preview shows anything else leaving, reject it.
Sign and pay the fee. Revoking costs a small Solana network fee, usually a fraction of a penny.
Disconnect old sites too. In Phantom, go to Settings, then Connected Apps, and disconnect anything unfamiliar. Disconnecting stops a site seeing your wallet. It does not remove an approval, which is why step 4 matters.

Solana Compass also runs a free revoke tool covering standard and Token-2022 accounts. Whichever you use, the same rule applies: reach it from a bookmark, and read every preview.

How do Solana wallets actually get drained?

Most drains come from a single transaction the victim signs, not from an approval left lying around. Knowing the patterns helps you spot them in a preview.

Direct transfer. A fake mint, claim or airdrop site asks you to sign something that sends your SOL and tokens straight to the attacker. Nothing is left to revoke afterwards.
Hidden approval. The transaction quietly sets a full-balance delegate on a token account, then the attacker moves the tokens later. This is the case revoking fixes.
Ownership change. Instead of moving tokens, the transaction hands control of your account to the attacker. In December 2025, security firm SlowMist reported a Solana user losing more than 3 million US dollars this way, after a deceptive signature request that showed no balance change when signed (CoinPaper). A revoke tool cannot fix this.
Delayed transactions. Normal Solana transactions expire within a minute or two. A "durable nonce" lets a signed transaction stay valid until someone submits it. In April 2026 an attacker used pre-signed durable nonce transactions to drain around 270 million US dollars from the Drift protocol, weeks after the signatures were collected (CoinDesk). The lesson for everyone: a signature can be used later than you think.
Leaked recovery phrase. If someone has your phrase, they do not need any approval. They often run a "sweeper bot" that moves anything sent to the wallet within seconds.

What does revoking not fix?

Revoking only clears token delegates. It does not reverse a transfer that has already happened, take back an ownership change, cancel a pre-signed transaction or protect a wallet whose recovery phrase or private key has leaked. In those cases the wallet should be treated as lost and abandoned.

What should you do if your wallet was drained?

Stop signing anything, create a brand new wallet with a new recovery phrase on a device you trust, and move whatever is left into it. Then report it. Our wallet safety guide sets out the full steps.

Do not send more funds to the old wallet, not even SOL to pay fees. If a sweeper bot is running, it will take it.
Revoke and disconnect if the cause looks like an approval rather than a leaked phrase.
Do not move unknown tokens to your new wallet. Phantom's help centre warns that some are built to trigger malicious actions when you interact with them (Phantom help centre).
Scan your device for malware and remove extensions or apps you do not recognise.
Report it. In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, report the fraud to Report Fraud (the police service that replaced Action Fraud). In Scotland, contact Police Scotland on 101. Keep transaction IDs, addresses and screenshots. Phantom also suggests a public report on Chainabuse.
Ignore "recovery services". Anyone who contacts you offering to get your crypto back for a fee is very likely running a second scam.

How do you avoid signing a drainer?

Only connect to sites you opened from a bookmark, use a separate trading wallet with little in it, and read every preview. If you expected to receive something and the preview shows anything leaving, or shows no change at all on a transaction you did not start, reject it. You can always try again later.

A wallet drain and a rug pull are different problems. For the coin itself, paste its address into our rug check before you buy.

Not financial advice. This guide explains how things work. It is not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold anything. Memecoins are extremely high risk and most go to zero.