[▲ Vercel Community](/) · [Categories](/categories) · [Latest](/latest) · [Top](/top) · [Live](/live) [v0](/c/v0/59) # Can a deployed website only be visible to me? 609 views · 19 likes · 27 posts lukek (@lukek) · 2025-09-04 I bought my domain and the website is running, but as I continue working on the website I’d prefer if it only worked for me? Is that possible? Should I cancel the deployment for now while I continue using the preview only? Thoughts? @techchintan Chintan (@techchintan) · 2025-09-04 · ♥ 1 Although I didn’t get your question. However, this link may help you. [How do I make sure my work isn’t public?](https://community.vercel.com/t/how-do-i-make-sure-my-work-isnt-public/11078/3) Can you please share more details? if the above link is not useful, then? @lukek lukek (@lukek) · 2025-09-04 That link is useful thank you. I just wanted to know if I could make a project private even if it’s deployed, but in hindsight it would’ve made more sense to experiment and see for myself. Nevertheless, that link you provided is very helpful. Thanks. Chintan (@techchintan) · 2025-09-04 · ♥ 1 Yes, you can. Please mark as solution if you are able to solve your issue. Thanks, Chintan lukek (@lukek) · 2025-09-06 Hey again Chintan, I just had a good look at the Deployment Protection, but I’m still a little confused. So my project is deployed and I regularly publish the changes. However, I still only want me/my iPhone to be able to actually open and see what’s on the domain. The $150usd plan password protection seems perfect for what I want but surely there’s a cheaper solution? P.S. the ‘Deployment Protection on Vercel’ seemed pretty simple but the ‘Vercel Firewall’ and ‘Middleware’ solution were too hard for me to follow through with. If you can respond and help me that would be so amazing. Edit: @anshumanb can you help me with this please? I’m happy with the simple $20 per month plan I have now but all I want to be able to do is keep my project deployed but only I can access it. Anshuman Bhardwaj (@anshumanb) · 2025-09-08 · ♥ 1 Hi @lukek, the https://vercel.com/docs/deployment-protection/methods-to-protect-deployments/vercel-authentication solution should work for you in the Pro plan without paying extra money. This ensures only you (after logging in with Vercel) can see the website. The only limitation is that your custom domain will not be protected under this. A simple workaround is to not attach the domain to the app until it's ready for public use. You can set a simple and easy to remember ` .vercel.app` domain from the Domains section in project settings. lukek (@lukek) · 2025-09-08 Yeah that’s a good point. But for me to be able to test with multiple emails using Resend I need a domain verified in Resend. Would using .vercel.app as the deployment link still work if I want the Resend stuff to still work? And if it won’t then is my only choice to pay the extra money (I think it’s $150 but it might be $30 - not sure). Anshuman Bhardwaj (@anshumanb) · 2025-09-08 · ♥ 1 Sending Resend emails is independent of the domain you use for hosting your site. Resend needs to add some DNS records so it can use the domain to send emails (they appear as if you sent them to your customer). But, apart from this, it doesn't really matter what you do with that domain or where the website is hosted. Coming to next part, it'll be $150 add-on for the Advanced Deployment Protection. Your updated $30 included $20 of Pro and $10 of Speed insights as per the screenshot you shared. So, if you add the Advanced Deployment Protection, it'll be $180/month. I still think for your use case unless using the domain is necessary (which is not for resend), keep it off and use the included protection. Once enabled, you can test the production as well as preview URLs from a device you're not logged in or a private browser window. lukek (@lukek) · 2025-09-08 · ♥ 1 Dude thank you so much for your breakdown. I’ll have a crack at it later tonight 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏 lukek (@lukek) · 2025-09-08 · ♥ 1 @anshumanb Just had a look at it all. I changed it to ‘Standard Protection’. If I’ve used my custom domain for my last few chats (forks I guess) then what do I do? Also, is it better for me to delete the custom domain from my project and bring it back later when I need it or does that make it a permanent deletion? Just don’t want to lose the domain I bought. Also, if I open the project link (by typing it in search bar) in a Private Browser will it act as if I’m an outside user and force me to request access? Anshuman Bhardwaj (@anshumanb) · 2025-09-08 · ♥ 1 Yes. Standard protection should work for you. - You can keep the domain there if you don't need deployment protection on them. Otherwise, remove the domain from project settings, see next step. - Removing custom domain from Vercel > Project settings should do the trick. It only removes the domain from the project. The domain will still be in the Vercel > Domains page. - If you open a project URL in a private window, no matter how, it should block access unless logged in Also, just to be sure you can hover over the **Custom Domains** text in the dropdown and see which domains will still be publicly accessible:  lukek (@lukek) · 2025-09-08 Okay I’ll try it out later today. I was wondering why the ‘Custom Domains’ was underlined because I tried clicking it and nothing happened. I can’t hover on iPhone :( I just checked something. I remember yesterday I didn’t see any domains here and there still isn’t. I only see my custom domain the the project settings so I’m uncertain deleting it from the project settings is wise right now.  Anshuman Bhardwaj (@anshumanb) · 2025-09-09 · ♥ 2 I see. For the best experience for using the dashboard, it's recommended to use a bigger screen as some elements can be hard to explore. About the domains section, did you buy the domain with Vercel or some other provider? Regardless the Domain will show up here if it is part of your team. I can dig deeper into it if you can share the domain name. lukek (@lukek) · 2025-09-09 · ♥ 1 Yeah sometimes just switching to landscapes shows me the full array of tools I wasn’t seeing in portrait mode. As for the custom domain, I definitely bought it on Vercel a couple days ago. It seems to show up everywhere besides where I took that screenshot which is odd. I’m more cognisant for privacy (peace of mind) now so can I send you the custom domain via DM please? Might be better for you to shoot me the message for an easy connection. Anshuman Bhardwaj (@anshumanb) · 2025-09-09 · ♥ 1 Makes sense. I've invited you to private message. Anshuman Bhardwaj (@anshumanb) · 2025-09-09 · ♥ 1 I see. So, you are right now at Project Settings > Domains. Removing the domain from here will only un-link from the project and not the account. Similarly, the www version of the domain. You can remove both of these entries without any issues. As, you can always add them back with a click. Edit: Deleting from project settings, you’ll have a `vercel.app` domain assigned. You can also add more `.vercel.app` domains which are available. The domain will always appear in your account (ensure team is selected in top bar) in the Vercel Dashboard > Domains tab:  You should never remove the domain from here. Edit: If you end up deleting the domain before expiry from the Domains settings, we might be able to get it back but it’ll be a long process with lots of verification. I haven’t done it personally every so can’t be more precise. lukek (@lukek) · 2025-09-09 Hey again, My Vercel Authentication is set as Standard Protection and I removed the custom domains from the Project Settings so it’s just the ‘.vercel.app’ domain that works for my project. You mentioned opening the domain in a private tab should not give me access to the site, except it still does. Why (potential reasons)? 🙏 Anshuman Bhardwaj (@anshumanb) · 2025-09-09 · ♥ 1 Hi @lukek, is it one of the domains that is shown in the Custom domains text under the **Standard Protection** option? If so, it is intentional. You can lukek (@lukek) · 2025-09-10 I’m not too sure what you mean… I’m using the ‘.vercel.app’ domain which I isn’t a custom domain as far as I’m aware. I know this has been a long chain of messages but I just want to get to the bottom of this.  Edit: It’s important for me to say that I noticed the GitHub 🔗link is different to the domain link I’m actually using. Not sure how to fix that.  Anshuman Bhardwaj (@anshumanb) · 2025-09-10 · ♥ 1 Hi @lukek, sorry for the confusion. If you see the message under **Standard Protection**, it says: > Protect all except production **Custom Domains** for your project. As per these [docs](https://vercel.com/docs/deployment-protection#understanding-deployment-protection-by-environment), it includes: > Any domain that appears in the Domains tab of your Project Settings in the Vercel Dashboard and is assigned to the `Production` environment. So, in this case I'd have to say you'd have to not use the Production environment if you want to protect those domains as well or create a very random domain prefix that's extremely hard to guess. Now, I think you can use v0 to publish to preview environment instead of production environment, which can solve the issue. For example, in this image I have used v0 to have preview deployments, which will be covered in Standard Deployment Protection:  lukek (@lukek) · 2025-09-10 · ♥ 1 Okay cool I’ll try sort it out in a couple hours thank you for the persistent help. lukek (@lukek) · 2025-09-10 Success at last! So I am familiar with being able to choose between Production in Preview - I’d seen it before. Using a new and very random prefix would’ve worked somewhat too, but I switched from ‘Production’ to ‘Preview’ and clicked the one branch that showed up and… now when I open the ‘.vercel.app’ domain in a private tab it shows the Vercel Log In page and then sends an email with a verification code. That works for me! 👍 Now I just need to figure out how to change the link on my GitHub. Woohoo Anshuman Bhardwaj (@anshumanb) · 2025-09-10 · ♥ 1 I'm glad it all worked out. Please ensure all your production deployments are down, you can find and delete them from the Vercel Dashboard > Deployments page (like the one I shared in my previous [reply](https://community.vercel.com/t/can-a-deployed-website-only-be-visible-to-me/21658/24?u=anshumanb)). As far as the Vercel link on GitHub, you can change it on GitHub. But, if you delete the deployment that the domain points to, it'll become 404. On Desktop you can change that link by clicking the gear icon button:  lukek (@lukek) · 2025-09-10 · ♥ 1 Yeah I literally just found that. I had to switch my phone to landscape… rookie error. I’ll check the production deployments thing now but should be good lukek (@lukek) · 2025-09-11 · ♥ 1  How do I delete them exactly? lukek (@lukek) · 2025-09-11 · ♥ 1  I just changed the lifeline of it to 1 day. A temporary fix but since I don’t need any Production Deployments right now it’s good enough for me. Edit: Funnily enough I found where to delete it right after I changed that to 1 day. You have to click ‘Inspect Deployment’.  lukek (@lukek) · 2025-09-11 I noticed I now cannot change this to Preview. Only Production is clickable. I think it’s a Production Deployment I deleted which causes this but I’m not sure. Any ideas? How to fix?  Edit 1 : This will definitely give us the insight to the problem…  Edit 2 : I’ll work through this soon. I should be good in fixing it, all good. 
