Changing your phone without losing access

Moving to a new phone usually goes smoothly right up to the moment a service asks for a confirmation code — and the app that generates it stayed on the device you have already wiped and handed over.

Before you touch the old phone

1. Move the authenticator

   Some apps migrate by QR code, some need each service re-enrolled by hand. Either way, do it first — how these apps work.

2. Check that codes on the new phone are accepted

   Sign in to one service using the new device. Until that works, the old phone stays as it is.

3. Make a backup and open it

   Not just start it — open a file from it. A backup nobody has checked is not a backup, as covered in the 3-2-1 rule.

4. Transfer the password manager

   Install it on the new phone and sign in before losing the old one. If the vault is local, copy it first.

5. Update the trusted device lists

   Add the new phone in the important services and remove the old one.

What is easy to forget

When the old phone is already gone

Lost, drowned, sold in a hurry. The route is longer but not hopeless.

1. Backup codes

   Issued when you enable a second factor. This is exactly the case they exist for — where to keep them.

2. A second device

   A tablet or computer where the same accounts are already signed in.

3. Recovery through support

   Slow and requires proof, but works. Apply from your usual device and network: it counts in your favour.

4. Block the SIM

   If the phone is lost rather than sold: the number is a route to your accounts — how it is exploited.

Before handing the old phone over

• The second factor works from the new device
• Signed out of the manufacturer's account — not merely reset
• Signed out of messengers and banking
• Performed a full factory reset
• Removed the SIM and the memory card
• Removed the device from trusted lists in my accounts

What else stays on a device and what to wipe is covered in detail in selling a device.