How do I make my Authenticator work on my new phone

Question

I got a new phone and now my Authenticator app is not working on my new phone.

Answer 1

Well, I opened a case under my m365 tenant, and I can tell you what we have done and told our customers to do

To ensure the correct transfer, you need to make sure you have the following settings under your "Save to iCloud" items:

1. “iCloud Drive” must be ON
2. “Passwords and Keychain” must be ON. When you tap on you must have “Sync this iPhone” ON
3. Go back on step to the “Saved to iCloud” list.
4. Scroll down the list until you find the Microsoft Authenticator (it shows as shown below). It must be ON.

My 70+ entries were transferred with minor adjustments (incorrect description) and for each entry related to a m365 account, I was force to sign-in and allow the registration of the device. Not bad and better than having to re-register all.

Answer 2

Hello Maggie Sapp,

Thanks for your question.

To move your authenticator app and configure accounts without losing data to a new phone, 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

I hope the above answer was helpful.

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

Regards,

Abiola