How to revoke token approvals, step by step

Revoking an approval removes a standing permission you previously granted, closing a door that an attacker or a compromised contract could otherwise use to move your tokens. This is a routine piece of wallet hygiene, and it is one of the few security actions that directly reduces risk you have already taken on. This guide covers two reputable tools, what to expect at each step, and the per-chain details that trip people up.

Before you start

Two facts shape the whole process. First, revoking is an on-chain transaction, so it costs a gas fee on the network where the approval lives. Second, revoking is done from the wallet that granted the approval, using that wallet’s own signature. No third party can revoke on your behalf, and no legitimate tool ever needs your seed phrase to do it. If any site asks for your seed phrase or private key to “revoke” or “clean” your wallet, close it immediately; that is a drainer.

Also decide up front which network each approval is on. Approvals are per chain. An approval you granted on Ethereum mainnet is separate from one on Polygon, Arbitrum, Optimism, BNB Chain, or any other network, and you revoke each on its own chain, paying that chain’s gas token.

Option A: Etherscan Token Approval Checker

Etherscan provides a first-party tool at https://etherscan.io/tokenapprovalchecker. Because it is run by the block explorer itself, it is a trustworthy starting point for Ethereum mainnet. Equivalent explorers exist for other chains, for example optimistic.etherscan.io/tokenapprovalchecker for OP Mainnet, and other Etherscan-family explorers follow the same path.

1. Open https://etherscan.io/tokenapprovalchecker and confirm the domain is exactly correct before connecting anything.
2. Select Connect to Web3 and connect your wallet. Supported options include MetaMask, WalletConnect, and Coinbase Wallet.
3. Use the ERC-20, ERC-721, and ERC-1155 tabs to review each category of approval, including the spender address and the approved amount.
4. Find the approval you want to remove and select Revoke.
5. Confirm the resulting transaction in your wallet. This costs a gas fee. Once it confirms, the approval is removed.

You can also inspect approvals for any address without connecting, by searching the address, which is useful for checking a wallet before you decide to connect it anywhere.

Option B: Revoke.cash

Revoke.cash is a widely used, purpose-built dashboard at https://revoke.cash. It supports over one hundred networks, works with major wallets including MetaMask, Rabby, and WalletConnect, and has added Solana support alongside EVM chains.

1. Open https://revoke.cash and verify the domain.
2. Either enter your wallet address (or an ENS name or other alias) in the search bar to view approvals read-only, or connect your wallet to revoke.
3. Select the network whose approvals you want to review. Switch networks to audit each chain separately.
4. Wait for the list to load, then sort, filter, or search by spender address to locate the approvals you want to remove.
5. Select Revoke on an approval and confirm the transaction in your wallet. Every revoke is an on-chain transaction and incurs a gas fee.

The read-only address view is a good habit in itself: you can survey your entire approval surface across chains before connecting your wallet to anything.

Reading the list: what to prioritize

You do not need to revoke everything at once. Focus on the highest-risk entries first:

• Unlimited approvals on tokens you actually hold, especially stablecoins and other high-balance assets.
• Spenders you do not recognize, or approvals tied to sites you no longer use.
• setApprovalForAll operator permissions on NFT collections that hold value.
• Anything granted around the time of a suspected phishing interaction.

Approvals to well-known, currently-used protocols can reasonably stay, though reducing unlimited amounts to bounded ones is still good practice where the application supports it.

Per-chain notes

• Ethereum mainnet. Gas is paid in ETH and can be relatively expensive at busy times. Batch your revocations into a quieter period if cost matters, but do not delay revoking anything you suspect is malicious.
• Layer 2 and sidechains (Arbitrum, Optimism, Base, Polygon, BNB Chain, and others). Approvals are per chain, so you must switch your wallet and the tool to each network and revoke there. Gas is paid in that network’s gas token and is usually far cheaper than mainnet.
• Solana. The approval model differs from EVM chains, but delegated token authority still exists and can be revoked. Revoke.cash supports Solana; review and remove delegations the same way.
• Multiple explorers. Etherscan-family explorers each cover their own chain. Use the explorer that matches the network the approval is on, or use a multi-chain dashboard to see everything in one place.

After revoking

Confirm the transaction succeeded and that the approval no longer appears in the list after a refresh. Revoking reduces future risk; it does not reverse transfers that already happened. If tokens have already been moved, revoking still matters, because it stops any remaining approvals from being used again, but recovery of moved assets is a separate and usually unlikely matter.

Finally, make this a recurring habit rather than a one-time cleanup. Every new interaction can add an approval, so a periodic review, for example monthly or after any heavy period of activity, keeps your approval surface small and your exposure low.

A note on gas and “free” revokes

Because revoking costs gas, some users hesitate. Weigh that small, predictable cost against the size of the balance the approval could expose. Removing an unlimited approval on a stablecoin balance is almost always worth a modest fee. Be wary of any service that offers to revoke approvals for free through a signature rather than a normal transaction; a genuine revocation is an ordinary on-chain transaction from your wallet.

Verifying the tool before you connect

Phishing pages routinely clone popular security tools, including approval checkers, because a user arriving to “clean” their wallet is already primed to connect and sign. Protect yourself with a few checks before you connect anything. Confirm the domain character by character rather than trusting a search result or an advertisement, since paid ads and lookalike domains are common delivery routes for fakes. Reach these tools through a bookmark you saved yourself or by typing the address, not through a link someone sent you. Remember that a legitimate approval checker only ever asks you to connect a wallet or to sign a normal revoke transaction; it never asks for your seed phrase, your private key, or a “wallet validation” signature. If any of those appear, leave.

Revoking from a hardware wallet

If the approvals you want to remove were granted by a wallet held on a hardware device, you revoke them the same way, but the confirmation happens on the device. Connect the hardware wallet to Etherscan’s checker or Revoke.cash through your usual interface, select Revoke, and then confirm the revoke transaction on the device’s own screen. Read what the device shows: a revoke sets an allowance back to zero or removes operator permission, and confirming it on the physical device gives you a trustworthy view of the transaction independent of the web page. This is also a good moment to practice the habit of only approving transactions whose effect you can actually read on the device.

Sources

• Etherscan — Token Approval Checker
• Etherscan Information Center — Token Approvals
• Revoke.cash
• Revoke.cash — How to Revoke Token Approvals and Permissions
• MetaMask Help Center — Protect Yourself