Is Google Authenticator Still Being Updated

Two-factor authentication (2FA) is 1 of the all-time and easiest means to keep your online accounts secure. Information technology works past issuing an authentication code on your phone when somebody tries to admission the account; if that person doesn't accept the lawmaking, they (or yous) don't get in. By using a 2FA app, such as Google Authenticator or Authy, you tin prevent somebody from accessing your information past getting your password. (You tin can have a code texted to yous, but that is considered far less secure due to the rise of and so-called SIM hacking.)

There is, of course, a catch. Because 2FA uses a key specific to your phone, if you lose or break your phone, yous can't simply reinstall the app on your new telephone and become on from there. You need to transfer the fundamental lawmaking for that phone as well as the app itself.

Dissimilar authentication apps handle this in different ways. In this article, I'm going to expect at Google Authenticator, including the easiest manner to transfer the app to a new telephone if you do have admission to the old 1, and how you can ready for a possible problem (like a broken phone).

Google Authenticator lets you establish 2FA by using your phone to scan a QR code generated past the app on a dissever device or by entering a primal lawmaking. It's a relatively easy process — unless you notice you have to move the app to a new phone.

Because 2FA uses security keys that are specific to each piece of hardware, you can't only reinstall Google Authenticator on your new telephone and apply it to log in. Instead, you have to transfer the keys to your new app.

The easiest method, especially if you employ 2FA with several apps, is to apply the Authenticator app's dedicated transfer feature to move your keys from one telephone to the other. However, in that location are two assumptions hither: start, that you have access to both the old and new phone, and 2nd, that you take Android devices. If either of these assumptions doesn't work for your situation, at that place are other methods you lot can use, which nosotros'll embrace next. But start, the easy method.

Transfer your Authenticator keys via Android

If y'all've got two Android phones, y'all tin can transfer your accounts to a new telephone past exporting them via a QR code generated by the Authenticator app.

Install Google Authenticator on your new telephone.
Tap "Go started."
Tap "Scan a QR code." You'll get a grid and instructions to "Place QR code inside red lines."
Open Google Authenticator on your older phone.
Tap on the three dots on the top right of the screen and select "Transfer accounts"
Select "Export accounts." Y'all may be asked to verify your identity via a fingerprint, password, or some other method.
Uncheck which accounts you lot don't want to export. Tap "Next."
You'll be shown a QR lawmaking. Center information technology in the grid in your new phone.
Y'all should see the imported app now listed in your Google Authenticator app in the new phone. (Note: the app will not exist deleted from your old phone.)

Alternative method #i: Utilize your backup codes

When you start set up up Google Authenticator, you may be given a fix of backup codes and asked to print them out or otherwise save them. And you definitely do desire to save them; print them out and put them somewhere safe or create a PDF and save information technology where nobody else can access it. If your phone goes due south, these codes volition be a good way to reestablish authentication on your new telephone — bold, of course, you haven't misplaced the codes.

This is too the style to reestablish your keys on a new iPhone.

If you lot missed that step during the installation, you tin can get those backup codes anyway. For that, you have to go into your Google account and and so follow these steps:

Click on "Security" in the left-paw column.
Scroll downward to and select "2-Step Verification." You'll probably have to enter your password.
Scroll down to "Fill-in Codes" and click on "Prove Codes."

*Click on "Show Codes" to get your ten backup codes for your Google account.*

You lot'll get a list of ten codes. Each lawmaking can exist used one time; if yous use them all, yous can become more by clicking on "Prove Codes" and then on "Get New Codes."

Alternative method #ii: Take a screenshot of the barcode

Ane way to create a backup in case y'all lose your phone is to accept and relieve a screenshot of the barcode that is created for each 2FA-secured app. If you've mislaid your fill-in codes, but yous've saved a screenshot of the QR barcode that you originally used to create your app'southward authentication, you can apply that screenshot to establish your credentials on a new telephone.

Merely throw the screenshot upward on your computer, install Google Authenticator on your new phone, and apply the plus sign on the app to scan the barcode. (You tin likewise enter the setup primal code if that's what yous saved.) Do this for each of your apps, and y'all'll be all set.

Update October 12th, 2021, eleven:20AM ET: This commodity was originally published on September second, 2020; the directions for transferring betwixt Android phones accept been updated.