How to Transfer Google Authenticator to New IPhone
Finally, Google has updated its useful Authenticator iOS app to allow users to export their countless tokens and import them to another iPhone right in the app. This was my biggest hitch when using Google Authenticator as it meant a whole world of annoyance awaiting you upgrading or switching to a new iPhone – you wouldn’t actually transfer Google Authenticator to a new iPhone as much as you “again everything will be arranged from scratch. ” You will need to visit every service that uses 2FA and either “change” it by scanning the QR code on your iPhone, or disable 2FA completely and set it up again – also by scanning the QR code.
It was a headache anyway, and it made me, an iPhone owner, incredibly jealous of Android users who could simply use the Export Accounts feature right in the app to quickly transfer their Authenticator tokens to a new phone. I will never know why it took Google so long to realize this important feature in iOS. But it’s here, and it’s easy to use:
- Make sure you are using the most recent version of Google Authenticator, which you can check through the App Store > your Apple ID in the upper right corner > Swipe down to update the app list with updates.
- Launch Google Authenticator.
- Tap the three dots icon in the upper right corner and select Export Accounts .
- Select up to 10 accounts to export. (Yes, you can only do 10 at a time.) Click Export when you make your selection.
- Launch Google Authenticator on your new iPhone and use it to scan the QR code on your old iPhone.
- Once you’ve verified that the accounts were imported successfully (for example, try signing in to one of them), tap Done on your old iPhone, and then tap Delete Accounts .
Repeat the process as needed if you have linked more than 10 accounts with Google Authenticator. But that’s all. It’s that simple and finally makes Google Authenticator a worthy contributor to the 2FA space – at least on iOS. I’m not sure I’ll leave Authy to go back to the Google app, but it’s nice to know that Google Authenticator finally has everything I need.
However, when I tried to export the accounts from my iPhone and import them into the Android version of Google Authenticator, the process failed. The app asked me to find an updated version of Google Authenticator in the Google Play store, which didn’t make sense as it was a fresh install of the app. This leads me to believe that this feature (or fix) is coming soon, but was not ready at the time of this writing.