Authenticator app

Question

I recently bought a new Samsung phone, and I am trying to get the Authenticator app working. I have removed the old device from the ID.me account, from my Microsoft account (which it actually never showed there), deleted the Authenticator app from the old device, and removed every bit of MFA I can find. I have removed ID.me from the Authenticator app, cleared the cache on the app on my new device, and restarted the phone. When I go to the Authenticator app and open the ID.me tab, there is no code showing. When I tap where the code should be, it says "Copied to device", yet I cannot paste it anywhere. What am I missing?

Answer 1

ID.me is a third-party account, so Microsoft Authenticator will not show push notifications or special one-click prompts for it. For non-Microsoft accounts, Authenticator only provides standard time-based one-time passcodes (TOTP) if the account was correctly added using a QR code or secret key from the third-party site.

Key points for this scenario:

1. Microsoft Authenticator notifications do not work for non-Microsoft accounts such as ID.me. Only Microsoft personal and work/school accounts support push notifications and one-click approval.
2. For ID.me, Authenticator should show a 6‑digit one-time password code under the ID.me entry if the TOTP secret was set up correctly. If no code is visible, the ID.me account entry in Authenticator is not properly configured.
3. Removing the old device and deleting the app on the old phone is not enough to “move” a TOTP configuration. TOTP secrets cannot be recovered from the old device once removed; they must be re-provisioned from the ID.me site.

To fix the missing code for ID.me on the new Samsung phone, the ID.me account must be re-enrolled in Microsoft Authenticator from ID.me’s own security/MFA settings, by starting MFA setup there and scanning the new QR code (or entering the secret key) into Authenticator. After that, the ID.me entry in Authenticator will display a rotating 6‑digit code that can be typed into ID.me when prompted.

For Microsoft accounts specifically (not ID.me):

• Push notifications can be enabled by re-registering the device with the Microsoft account in Authenticator: use Add account → Personal Microsoft account and sign in with the Microsoft account credentials.
• To ensure notifications do not go to an old device, the old device must be explicitly removed in the Microsoft account’s two-step verification area under Account Security.

If a new phone is being set up for Microsoft 365 MFA (work or school account), use the Additional security verification or Security info page to remove the old phone method and add the new phone and Authenticator again, then install Authenticator from the Google Play Store and complete the registration.

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References:

• Microsoft Authenticator FAQs
• Use a screen reader to set up and troubleshoot multifactor authentication
• Download Microsoft Authenticator
• Authentication methods in Microsoft Entra ID - Microsoft Authenticator app