Transferring Microsoft Authenticator to a New Device (Already Signed In)

I had the same issue and I found a way around it.

On my old phone, I performed a backup of my accounts (Top right menu > Settings > Cloud Backup).

Then on my new phone:

• I forced-stop Authenticator (Settings > Applications > Authenticator > Force stop)
• For good measure, I also flushed the cache for Authenticator (in the same section as the Force stop option)
• I then used Edge to log on to my Microsoft account and then immediately log out. No reason why you couldn't use Chrome to do that as well
• I also made sure to force-stop any other Microsoft application that might be running at the time and using my Microsoft credentials (in my case, both Outlook and Teams)
• I started Authenticator again, and it was as if I had freshly installed it. After asking me to allow/disallow notifications and sending logs to MS, it offered me to log on to my account, but at the bottom of the screen there was an option to restore from a backup
• I followed the instructions, and all my accounts wound up transferred to the new device.

Hope this may help someone.

To provide an update on the thread, I attempted to enable backup on the new device, hoping it would detect the previous backup and offer me the choice to backup, restore, or replace. Unfortunately, it only provides the option to backup the new empty device or replace my full backup with the new empty one, neither of which is what I intend to do.

Yes, so you see I had mentioned I am already signed in on the authenticator on the new device. Consequently have already skipped that note on step one;

On your mobile device, open the Authenticator app, and select Begin recovery. **Important:**Select the Begin recovery link before signing in.

So I need to either be able to select restore somehow, or log out so I can not log in before beginning the recovery process. I hope that makes more sense, now that I've explained further.

Good day Brett, thanks for your question. I am glad to be able to provide assistance to you today. If you made a backup copy for the authenticator then you should restore it from there instead of logging in and adding an account and you can also refer to the link below.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/account-bil...

Regards,

Paul R.

Yes, that was my initial inquiry. Apart from uninstalling and reinstalling, is there any other method available considering I'm already logged in at this point?

I've seen some other suggestions that appear more like ripping the data out from under the Authenticator like clearing the app's data and cache, but based on this Microsoft Authenticator Q&A, the best method is likely to click the Microsoft account on the main Authenticator screen, then click the 'Settings' gear in the upper right-hand corner, then click the Remove account button displayed there.

Common questions about the Microsoft Authenticator app - Microsoft Support

What I'm uncertain about and couldn't find a clear answer for, is whether the previously setup Microsoft account might cause any problems on the server end of the connection. Assuming that recovering the previous Authenticator data to the phone includes the private key along with all of the individual Microsoft and other accounts originally setup, that should reset the phone end just fine, but I'm not sure how the server end of this relates to that, though if it just uses your Authenticator's public key, then I guess that should work fine.

The other thing I'm unsure of is how you'll know which Authenticator backup to restore, which if you hadn't set that back up using the new phone yet, should obviously be from the old phone. If both backups exist, I don't know if it will offer them by name or only offer the new one that matches, so pay attention to that to ensure you choose the old one that contains the accounts.

I'd also make sure you have multiple other backup verification options set like phone number (text), alternate email address and even recovery code to ensure you don't get locked out if something goes wrong.

I did this process the 'right' way when I replaced my phone recently, since I always read before I do, but I understand how you can end up in this situation, so I'm surprised there isn't more about this issue that's easy to find, but I sure couldn't.

Rob