Skip to content

Importing from Other Apps

Private Authenticator's Import screen has a row for each way accounts can arrive. This page covers everything except Google Authenticator and Private Authenticator's own backups, which have their own pages.

Aegis

Aegis Authenticator (an Android app) can export its whole vault as a file.

  1. In Aegis, go to Settings → Tools → Export Vault, and turn encryption off for the export. Private Authenticator can't read an encrypted Aegis file.
  2. Get the file onto your iPhone: AirDrop it, email it to yourself, or put it in iCloud Drive.
  3. In Private Authenticator, tap the logo, choose Import, then Aegis File Format, and pick the file.
  4. Review the accounts, tap Import, choose one of the three import choices, and confirm with Face ID or Touch ID.

Aegis Steam entries come across as Steam accounts, ready to use. Counter-based (HOTP) entries and a few other kinds Aegis supports are skipped, and the review screen says how many.

A text file of setup links

Some apps and tools export a plain text file with one otpauth:// link per line, one account per link. Choose Import → Other File and pick the file. Each usable line becomes an account, and lines the app can't use are counted and skipped. Steam links (otpauth://steam/…) work here too.

In fact both Other File and Aegis File Format open the same file picker and work out the format from the file itself, so it doesn't matter which you tap. A file larger than 1 MB is refused.

Apps that export in Google's format

Many authenticator apps, Aegis and andOTP among them, can show a Google Authenticator export QR code. Use the Google Authenticator import for those.

Microsoft Authenticator and Oracle Mobile Authenticator

Neither app can export its accounts, so there is nothing for Private Authenticator to read. The Import screen lists them only to say so. To move an account from one of them:

  1. Sign in to the website, find its two-step verification setting, and choose to set up a new authenticator app (sometimes called change or reset the authenticator).
  2. Scan the new QR code with Private Authenticator's +.
  3. Confirm with the code Private Authenticator shows, and the site forgets the old app.

Do them one at a time, and keep the old app until each site accepts a code from the new one.

Steam

See Adding a Steam Account: a Steam account comes from an Aegis export, an otpauth://steam/ link or QR code, or the shared_secret typed by hand.

A backup from another iPhone

That's the Recovery Backup row; see Restoring a Backup.

Continue to The Three Import Choices.