Institutions had to shift to online platforms due to the COVID-19 outbreak. Some educational institutions have continued using technology as a teaching medium during this period and after. This immediate and unexpected shift brought constraints to learning and teaching, increasing emotional labor for teachers. Emotional vulnerability, a biological trait affecting how individuals respond to daily events, manifested as digital vulnerability during and after the COVID-19 outbreak in digital environments. Although many studies investigate teachers’ emotional labor and vulnerability during face-to-face teaching, research in online education remains limited. This exploratory qualitative study addresses this gap by exploring teachers’ experiences, control, and regulation of emotions. Data were collected using semi-structured questions in focus group interviews with twenty-five English language instructors from the preparatory school of a state university in Istanbul. Interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) was employed to analyze the data, providing an in-depth reflection on participants’ experiences with emotional labor in online teaching. The results show that teachers experience complex emotions before, during, and after lessons but manage to balance them without interrupting their teaching. The findings highlight the importance of institutions investing in teachers’ wellbeing and incorporating emotional labor considerations into professional development programs for online environments to decrease emotional vulnerability.