Instagram two-factor authentication with an authenticator app

In the Instagram app: your profile › the ☰ menu › Accounts Center › Password and security › Two-factor authentication. Pick your account, choose Authentication app, add the key to your authenticator app and type in the six-digit code it shows. Instagram itself recommends an app over text messages, and you can only set it up in the Instagram app for iPhone or Android, not on the website.

Step by step on iPhone

1. Open Instagram, tap your profile picture at the bottom right, then ☰ at the top.
2. Tap Accounts Center (on some accounts it's called Meta Account), then Password and security › Two-factor authentication, and pick the account.
3. Choose Authentication app.
4. If the authenticator app is on the same iPhone, Instagram can hand the key straight to it. If not, copy the key and paste it into the app.
5. Type the code from the app into Instagram.
6. Save the backup codes Instagram offers, somewhere other than the phone.

Get your backup codes

Didn't save them? Accounts Center › Password and security › Two-factor authentication › your account › Additional methods › Backup codes. Tapping Get new codes cancels the old ones. You have to be signed in to see them, so do it while you can. Instagram Help · Backup codes at other services

Text message or app?

With text messages, your account is only as safe as your phone number. Anyone who gets your number moved to a new SIM card gets your codes too. An authenticator app works with no signal and abroad, and the key stays on the phone. WhatsApp can deliver the codes as well, but only once text messages are turned on.

New phone

The codes come from the authenticator app, not from Instagram, so it's the app's keys that have to move. If they move by themselves (iCloud Keychain, a Google or Microsoft account), you're done. If not, sign in on the old phone, turn Authentication app off and on again in Instagram, and add the new key to the app on the new phone. Google Authenticator on a new phone · Microsoft Authenticator on a new phone

Locked out

When Instagram asks for the code, pick another way to confirm and enter one of your backup codes. No codes? Use the help options on the login screen; Instagram may ask you to confirm the account is yours. If Instagram rejects a code you know is right, it's almost always the phone's clock: how to fix it.

Kode

Kode is an iPhone authenticator app by Peter Theill ($1.99 once), with no account and no ads. It takes the key straight from Instagram on the same iPhone, or you paste it from the clipboard. The key lives in the iPhone's Keychain and comes along to a new iPhone through iCloud Keychain.