😷How to move Google Authenticator/2fa to a New Phone 📱📲
I recently upgraded my phone, and attempted to transfer my Google authenticator account to the new phone but I was not able to. I briefly panicked and thought that all of my crypto and other 2fa protected accounts would be inaccessible if my old phone stopped working (it was really beat up).
After looking through a few YouTube videos, I learned of the importance of saving your 2fa secret keys. I had not saved my keys. Secret keys will allow you to access your accounts without 2fa. Some of the YouTubers that did not save their secret keys mentioned that they had to wait a few days and provide various forms of proof to exchanges before they were allowed to access their accounts again.
How to move Google Authenticator/2fa to a New Phone
If you still have access to your old device do the following:
1. Install Google Authenticator on the new device
2. Login to your exchange account
3. Disable 2fa
4. Re-enable it with the new device and write down or print the secret key
If you don’t have access to the old device do the following:
1. Use your secrets keys to access the account or contact the exchange an attempt to retrieve your account (this may take a few days).
When you follow either method google authenticator will not produce working codes on the old device only on the new device.
You should save your secret keys regardless of whether you have access to your device or not. You never know if your device will be stolen or broken. It is also important to have access to the email you used to create your google authenticator account.
I guess this proves that 2fa is an effective security measure.
-Rexlito