Bought a new phone. New phone doesn't have the accounts I used to have in them. Please help

Question

I bought a new phone and the Authenticator app no longer has my same accounts listed. My old phone still has the accounts listed and works fine for my 2FA. How can I get my new phone to have the same Authenticator accounts listed and functionality as my last phone?

Answer 1

Thanks for your question.

To transfer your data from one phone to another you need to backup the existing phone's MFA data.

To move your authenticator app and configure accounts without losing data, you need to:

• Go to your authenticator app
• Open Microsoft Authenticator. Tap the three vertical dots at the top right, and then tap "Settings."
• In the "Backup" section, toggle-On "Cloud Backup" on an Android phone, or "iCloud Backup" on an iPhone.
• This will proceed to back up your data. (Note, this will back this up to the account you used to set authenticator up)

You can then proceed to navigate to your new phone

• Open your fresh Authenticator and navigate to recovery tool. In recovery you should see >> "Already have a back up? sign in to your recovery account"
• Once you do this, You'll be asked to sign in to the Microsoft account you used for the backup on your old phone. Your accounts will then automatically be added to Microsoft Authenticator on your new one.

Pls note that some accounts will ask you to revalidate, to confirm it is you. by signing in to those accounts or scanning a QR code. Microsoft Authenticator will display a message if you need to do this.

Once done test all your accounts are present then go ahead and remove from your old phone

See: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/mem/intune-service/user-help/set-up-migrate-iphone-for-work?source=recommendations

You can mark it 'Accept Answer' and 'Upvote' if this helped you

Regards,

Abiola

Answer 2

Hi,

I recently got a new phone and am trying the above. In common with many users, all accounts on my new phone are asking for a QR code which I don't have.

How can I go about rectifying this?

Paddy