Intracerebral haemorrhage and subarachnoid haemorrhage are associated with considerable morbidity and mortality. Too often the focus is on acute treatment after a haemorrhage has occurred, instead of primary and secondary prevention. Medical therapies to control hypertension, achieve tobacco abstinence, and avoid excessive alcohol consumption can confer broad reductions in haemorrhage risk across pathophysiological subtypes. Judicious restriction of antiplatelet and anticoagulant therapies to only those individuals and those intensities for which they are indicated also can substantially reduce haemorrhagic stroke frequency. Specific endovascular and surgical therapies, judiciously employed, will further reduce risk of first or recurrent haemorrhage from structural vascular anomalies, including arteriovenous malformation, cavernous malformations, and saccular aneurysms. For unruptured intracranial aneurysms, features that favour consideration of preventive occlusion include include younger patient age, prior subarachnoid haemorrhage from a different aneurysm, familial intracranial aneurysms, large aneurysm size, irregular shape, basilar or vertebral artery location, and aneurysm growth on serial imaging. Among individuals who are technical candidates for either coiling or clipping, endovascular coiling is associated with a reduction in procedural morbidity and mortality but has a higher risk of recurrence.