Microsoft Authenticator - restore says "That Microsoft account doesn't exist"

Question

Good day,

I had to replace my phone and as such I need to restore my Authenticator data to the new phone. When I enter my primary email address in the "sign in" if says that it does not exist. I have read conflicting articles that claim that Authenticator only works for Business Accounts and other that say that backup only works with personal MS Accounts. I have tried a number of my Business Accounts and they all get the same message - doesn't exist. When I put in my personal account it logs in then says that there is no backup under that account. So I an very confused. the backup was created in june of 2020 and was last updated on 11/16/2023 so I know I have a good backup but I have no way, it would seem to get to it. my original phone failed so I can not go back and setup a new backup with a known account - my only hope is to figure out what account was used. I have close to 100 different accounts registered in Authenticator so going back and recreating each one would be nearly impossible especially since a number of they rarely get accessed and I do not have a list of all the accounts ( that was in Authenticator )

Thanks

Kevin

Answer 1

Work Together122,

If we were talking about one account this would be the path to take, but I have over 100 accounts configured for MFA / 2FA in Authenticator and resetting those would be a nightmare, not to mention that I am the Admin for most of those tenants.

Answer 2

If you are the admin then need to contact phone support and ask them to escalate your issue to the data protection team. While phone call, press "1" as a business email user and press "1" again as technical support. You also need to provide your subscription purchased information such as company name, billing information, phone number etc.

See: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/admin/get-help-support?view=o365-worldwide#phone-support https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/global-customer-service-phone-numbers-c0389ade-5640-e588-8b0e-28de8afeb3f2

Answer 3

For Business account, ask your IT admin to reset MFA and try to setup again .