Free Sms For Verification Codes

[Dhara Lyford]

There are a number of possible explanations for why verification codes don't always arrive. Read through the list of the most common causes, and see if any of them apply to you, or use our troubleshooter to help guide you.

Did your email send your verification code to your junk folder?
Check your junk email folder for a message from a Microsoft account, and use the code sent to you. Valid verification codes come from an @accountprotection.microsoft.com email address.

Is your phone number or email address entered correctly?
To keep your information safe when you're signing in, we only show you the last two digits of your phone number or the first two characters of your email address.

Does your alternate email address end in @outlook.com, @hotmail.com, @live.com, or @msn.com?
If so, you're using one Microsoft account to verify another Microsoft account. This can make it tricky to keep track of which one you're signed in to. When you sign in to the second account (to get the code sent to that email), most browsers automatically sign you out of the first account (the one that's actually requesting the code).

Open a new window in privacy mode. Ctrl + Shift + P is the shortcut for InPrivate Browsing in Microsoft Edge and Internet Explorer. If you're using a different browser, check that browser's help for info about privacy mode.

Unusual activity. You may be blocked due to unusual activity. Microsoft works to protect you, your accounts, and our services by assessing the trustworthiness and credibility of every sign-in, sign-up, or customer interaction. If your actions trigger alerts or deviate significantly from your typical patterns, we might interpret it as potentially risky behavior, leading to temporary block.

There may be heavy compromised traffic coming from your geographical location and to protect you, we may also block your account. While rare, these issues will be automatically resolved after a certain period of time.

Read Terms of Service: Familiarize yourself with the Microsoft account terms of service to understand the rules and guidelines. Review the section related to account blocks and determine if any of your activities may have violated these terms.

When you see a message asking you to make sure you can receive a verification code, verify or add new security info. You can skip it for 24 hours at a time, but after seven days from the first notice you'll have to verify or add new security info before you can sign in again.

If you set up 2-Step Verification, you can use the Google Authenticator app to generate codes to sign in to your Google Account. You can still generate codes without an internet connection or mobile service. Learn more about 2-Step Verification.

You can save your codes safely in your Google Account with Google Authenticator. This helps protect you from being locked out of your account when you change devices. However, you may instead choose to use Google Authenticator without these protections.

If your device is lost or stolen, you should immediately ensure that any codes stored on the device cannot be accessed by others. To remove the codes, use the remote erase device option for iOS or Android. If this option is unavailable, you can choose between the following options:

I've been using Authy for several years, I was not aware that iOS even offered this option now. I realize this is an Authy question but I've chosen Authy currently but I don't see it kicking in, how does this work?

This is a new iOS feature that I believe we're started testing with the latest beta version of 1Password for iOS. It allows you to ingest TOTP seeds so that you can easily setup two-factor authentication for the apps that you use on your iPhone or iPad.

So, for example, if you try to setup two-factor authentication for an account via an iOS app on your iPhone, and 1Password is enabled for the "Setup Verification Codes Using..." feature, Password AutoFill should offer to save your one-time password in 1Password without you having to scan a QR code or save the secret manually.

I went to a site and signed up for 2FA. Change iOS Settings > Password > Options to choose 1Password to generate verification codes. It produced the usual page with a QR code and the corresponding alphanumeric key and a text box to enter the generated TOTP code. The iOS Safari extension did not appear to recognize any of these elements. In contrast, the browser add-on Scan QR code feature is such a pleasant experience.

You're not missing anything, that's not how that OS feature works. If you had an otpauth:// url on that page, or extracted it from the QR code and you tried to load that url, that would've bounced you over to the iOS app and it would have let you pick an item to attach it to (or create a new item to contain it).

It seems to not actually be clickable, but if you copy it and paste&go in Safari's url bar then it'll do the expected behavior (ask if you want to open it in 1Password). The iOS Settings -> Passwords -> Options path doesn't have anything to do with the Safari extension, it is solely telling the OS that the main iOS application can handle being provided an otpauth:// url. I'm not sure if Apple's intent there is to have sites displaying those directly going forward or not, but it's not generally applicable when a QR code or the OTP secret is on that device's screen. It's possibly helpful if you're using the iOS device's camera to open a QR code's url from another device or paper or something.

I'm not sure if you are a 1Password team member and I realize this is beta software but I'm still unclear on what the user experience here should be. What was the intent 1Password had when the app was enhanced to add 1Password as an option on the iOS Settings Password Options? As I mentioned, the desktop experience provided by the Scan QR code feature is superb. I just don't understand how the iOS feature provides that functionality. Are you expecting users to copy paste otpauth URLs manually?!

I think the purpose of this iOS platform feature is two-fold: it both allows induction of codes (as @rudy describes) and auto-fills codes when needed. Rather, this is how the feature is supposed to work. For example, this article shows how it functions using iCloud Keychain: -two-factor-codes-to-password-entries-in-ios-15-ipados-15-and-safari-15/. See this screenshot from the article:

If 1Password fully supports this feature, the benefit is not with websites. As @shhh says, the 1Password browser extension already does a fabulous job with that. The real win would be when logging into apps: iOS would offer the OTP in that strip above the software keyboard, pulled from 1Password. In other words, we wouldn't need to use the "copy OTP to clipboard" feature of 1Password anymore.

I hope the team is working on full support for this feature, because it is in my book the only "less than perfect" aspect of filling passwords in an app. Don't get me wrong: I am grateful for the cleverness of the "copy OTP to clipboard" feature. Filling OTPs with the platform "verification codes" feature, however, would just smooth out the user experience.

The "Setup Verification Codes Using..." feature is handled by iOS Password AutoFill. If an iOS app offers you an otpauth:// link and you open it, then iOS will pass the TOTP secret in that otpauth:// link to the authenticator app that you've selected for the feature. If that authenticator app is 1Password then you'll be given the chance to save the secret in 1Password.

For example, if you enable two-factor authentication (2FA) for your Twitter account using the Twitter iOS app, you'll see a button in the Twitter app called "Link app". If you tap on that button iOS will open 1Password so that you can save your 2FA one-time password for Twitter in 1Password.

This feature doesn't work with QR codes and if you're being offered a QR code (and not an otpauth:// link) when you enable two-factor authentication for a website then I suggest that you scan it using the "Scan QR Code" feature built into 1Password for Safari on iOS: Get to know 1Password for Safari on your iPhone or iPad

@Dave_1P Did you see my previous comment? When I tap on the otpauth:// link, I get an error, it does NOT open 1Password, which is what I have selected in iOS Settings > Passwords > Setup verification codes using ....

I do not have an actual app at this time, I am just trying to understand how to use the feature. As I mentioned earlier, even when I go to your test page at -2fa in Safari, I do not see the 1Password extension kicking in. The otpauth:// link on that page is not clickable and I am unable to copy/paste it either.

Ah I see the issue. For some reason, Rudy's link above has the word denied: in front of otpauth:// which makes it invalid. When I remove that, it works fine. When I paste it in Safari, it asks to open in 1Password and presents a list of all Login items to search. When I pick an item, it pastes the seed into the one-time password field to generate the TOTP codes going forward.

Yes, you'll need to have first saved a Login item for a website in 1Password before you see the "Scan QR Code" option when using 1Password for Safari since 2FA one-time passwords are an additional factor and require that you already have the primary factor (the website's password) saved in 1Password.

@Dave_1P Well, I might have chosen to skip saving the item in 1Password on the login/password page but when I see the QR code I want to change my mind and save the item. I realize that the username/password is no longer available to 1Password but it could offer to create a new item with just the QR code and leave it to me to add the username/password later.

Thank you for the suggestion! I can definitely see how 1Password in the browser detecting and offering to save one-time passwords for a website, even if you don't already have an existing Login item, would be useful and I've passed your request along to the product team.

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