How to Back Up and Export Your Google Authenticator 2FA Codes

Losing access to your two-factor authentication codes is one of the more quietly stressful things that can happen to your digital life — and Google Authenticator, one of the most widely used authenticator apps, doesn’t make backing them up obvious.

Why this is actually a hard problem

Google Authenticator’s “Transfer accounts” feature exports your accounts as one or more QR codes — but they’re encoded in a proprietary, protobuf-based format, not the standard otpauth:// format most authenticator apps and websites use to set up 2FA in the first place. A regular QR scanner can read the code but can’t make sense of the data inside it. If you lose your phone, accidentally delete the app, or switch devices without first exporting and safely storing those codes, the 2FA-protected accounts behind them can become genuinely difficult to recover — often requiring a slow, manual account-recovery process with each individual service.

What “backing up” your 2FA codes actually requires

1. Decode the export format — a tool needs to actually parse Google Authenticator’s protobuf-encoded transfer QR codes, not just display them as raw text.
2. Store the secrets securely — the underlying TOTP secret key is sensitive; it should live in your device’s secure enclave (iOS Keychain, Android EncryptedSharedPreferences), the same protection used by password managers, not in a plain text file or screenshot.
3. Be able to re-export when you need to — a backup you can’t restore from isn’t actually a backup. This means being able to regenerate a scannable code from the stored secret, not just view it.

Bulk export vs. single-account export — a distinction that matters

If you’re restoring an entire batch of accounts to a new device, you need a tool that speaks Google Authenticator’s specific otpauth-migration:// transfer format — only a handful of apps (Google Authenticator itself, Aegis, 2FAS, and similar) understand it. But if you only need to move one or two accounts, exporting a single account uses the plain otpauth:// format — the same standard format every website already uses to set up 2FA in the first place — which means a single-account export can be scanned into literally any authenticator app, not just ones built to understand Google’s specific migration format.

A practical backup habit

The safest approach: whenever you set up a new 2FA account, immediately export and securely store a backup — don’t wait until you’re about to switch phones, since that’s exactly the moment something can go wrong. Store the backup somewhere as protected as the accounts it guards (not a plain-text note, not an unencrypted cloud photo backup).

Authenticator Exporter is built specifically to solve this — it decodes Google Authenticator’s transfer QR codes, stores your accounts’ secrets in your device’s secure enclave, and lets you re-export at any time, in bulk or one account at a time. It’s available on the App Store and Google Play, and runs entirely on-device — nothing is ever transmitted anywhere. See the App Store launch and Google Play launch posts for more on how it works.