Authy Is Sunsetting Its Desktop Authenticator Apps on March 19, 2024

Authy, the two-factor authentication (2FA) service, says its desktop apps for macOS, Windows, and Linux will reach end-of-life on March 19, 2024.

authy desktop
Twilio, the company that owns Authy, revealed the decision on Wednesday in a updated support article. It did not say whether Authy Desktop apps will stop working after this date or simply no longer receive updates, but the company confirmed that its mobile apps will continue to be maintained.

As one of only a few third-party desktop 2FA code generator apps on Mac, the loss of Authy Desktop is likely to disappoint users who got used to signing into 2FA-protected accounts from their computer rather than having to get out their phone, where most 2FA apps usually live.

For users in this position that own a Mac powered by Apple silicon, Authy suggests downloading the iOS version of the app to their computer. Otherwise, Authy recommends using the mobile version instead, or switching to a different authenticator app. The bad news is that anyone who wants to switch to another 2FA app entirely will have to disable 2FA on all of their stored accounts first, because Authy lacks an export feature.

At the beginning of the year, Authy said that it was shutting down its desktop app in August 2024, so it has brought forward its decision to sunset the app by several months. The company said its decision to kill its desktop versions was made to "streamline our focus and provide more value on existing product solutions for which we see increasing demand."

Popular Stories

iOS 18

Apple Says iOS 18.4 Will Be Released in April With These New Features

Wednesday February 26, 2025 7:15 am PST by
In a recent press release, Apple confirmed that iOS 18.4 will be released in April. From the Apple News+ Food announcement:Coming with iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4 in April, Apple News+ subscribers will have access to Apple News+ Food, a new section that will feature tens of thousands of recipes — as well as stories about restaurants, healthy eating, kitchen essentials, and more — from the...
Generic iPhone 17 Feature With Full Width Dynamic Island

Latest iPhone 17 Series CAD Images in Line With Redesign Rumors

Friday February 28, 2025 2:51 am PST by
Apple is expected to embrace a new camera system design for some models in its upcoming iPhone 17 series, and the latest purported CAD images don't deviate from what we have been hearing lately about Apple's new lineup. If you do not like the sound of an iPhone with a Google Pixel-style camera bar, look away now. Seasoned leaker Sonny Dickson shared the following images in a post on X...
iphone 16e usb c feature

Apple Provides Reason for iPhone 16e's Lack of MagSafe

Friday February 28, 2025 4:39 am PST by
Apple has offered a reason why the iPhone 16e doesn't include MagSafe, one of the more notable omissions from its latest entry-level smartphone. According to Apple representatives who spoke to Daring Fireball's John Gruber, MagSafe is not included in the iPhone 16e because "most people in the iPhone 16e's target audience exclusively charge their phones by plugging them into a charging...
apple intelligence black

These New Apple Intelligence Features Are Coming in iOS 18.4

Friday February 28, 2025 3:17 pm PST by
iOS 18.4 was supposed to bring new Apple Intelligence Siri features, but Apple ended up needing to pull those capabilities from the update to continue testing. There are fewer new Apple Intelligence additions now, but there are still some new features that will make the update worth installing when it comes out in April. Priority Notifications Apple introduced Priority Notifications back at ...
Generic iOS 19 Feature Mock Light

iOS 19 Rumored to Include These New Features for Your iPhone

Saturday March 1, 2025 11:00 am PST by
iOS 19 is still around three months away from being unveiled, but there are plenty of rumors about the upcoming update. Below, we recap iOS 19 rumors so far. Redesigned Camera App A leak earlier this year allegedly revealed a redesigned Camera app coming with iOS 19. On his YouTube channel Front Page Tech in January, Jon Prosser shared a video showing what the new Camera app will...
cook trump

Trump Responds to Apple Keeping Diversity Policies

Wednesday February 26, 2025 6:32 am PST by
In an all-caps post on Truth Social today, U.S. President Donald Trump said Apple should fully end its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies. Tim Cook meeting with President Trump in 2017 "APPLE SHOULD GET RID OF DEI RULES, NOT JUST MAKE ADJUSTMENTS TO THEM," he wrote. Trump's post comes one day after Apple held its annual shareholders meeting, during which a majority of...
apple watch ultra snow

6 Features Coming to the Apple Watch Ultra 3

Tuesday February 25, 2025 9:00 am PST by
The Apple Watch Ultra 3 is expected to launch later this year, arriving two years after the previous model with a series of improvements. While no noticeable design changes are expected for the third generation since the company tends to stick with the same Apple Watch design through three generations before changing it, there are a series of internal upgrades on the way. By the time the ...
airpods pro purple

Here's When AirPods Pro 3 Are Rumored to Launch

Monday February 24, 2025 9:14 am PST by
According to a post on X today from a leaker known as Kosutami, Apple plans to launch AirPods Pro 3 in May or June this year. The leaker also claimed that an AirTag 2 will launch around the same time. Kosutami is best known as a collector of prototype Apple hardware, but they have occasionally shared accurate information about Apple's future product plans. For example, they accurately...
apple c1

How Fast is Apple's First-Ever 5G Modem? The Results Are Surprising

Friday February 28, 2025 10:08 am PST by
iPhone 16e reviews are now out, and Apple's custom-designed C1 modem has been put to the test. The results so far are quite surprising, as the C1's speeds are not as slow compared to Qualcomm modems as originally expected. While the C1 does not support ultra-fast mmWave 5G in the U.S., it appears to offer comparable 5G performance to Qualcomm's Snapdragon X71 modem found in the iPhone 16,...

Top Rated Comments

OS X Dude Avatar
14 months ago
1Password or iCloud Keychain ftw. We use 1Password at work purely for the flexibility of Shared Vaults.
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ahmoda Avatar
14 months ago
I'm using iCloud keychain as a verification code generator app and it works perfectly and across all apple devices.
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
bsolar Avatar
14 months ago
It should be possible to export the keys from Authy without having to reset every account.

It's not exactly a straightforward process, but I did it successfully years ago. It requires accessing Desktop Authy through its debug port and exporting the raw data.

The GIST documentation ('https://gist.github.com/gboudreau/94bb0c11a6209c82418d01a59d958c93').

A YouTube video guide ('//www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7ruB_uFcj4').

Note: for my migration I did not generate the QR-Codes as described, I simply manually copy-pasted the security tokens from the raw data into my new 2fa tool.
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
6787872 Avatar
14 months ago

OTP on a desktop that contains your passwords is not MFA.

Of course you can. You know you haven't refuted what I said, right?
here comes the 'Ackchyually ('https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/ackchyually-actually-guy')' crowd.

it's better than no 2FA at all.
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
3530025 Avatar
14 months ago
I'm using Authy for quite a long time. Great thing! I did not know desktop app even existed. iOS app is all right and together with shared clipboard, it really not a big deal to open the app on my iPhone.

Also I don't think it's good security-wise to have both factors accessible from one device. Imagine virus getting into your macOS - your 2FA is useless now, because attacker got access to both factors at once.

Authy + Bitwarden. Best solution. It's free and it's cross-platform. You are not locked to single ecosystem and you can access your credentials from any major system you need. Oh and you can also selfhost Bitwarden if you are into that and want to take it step further, away from cloud.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Torley Avatar
14 months ago
I used Authy, but it was disappointing for awhile. You couldn't easily organize and archive accounts, so it ended up looking like a janky mess. Too much time was spent finagling things around.

More elegant solution — migrate to 1Password, which has a built-in authenticator ('https://support.1password.com/one-time-passwords/'). The autofill works really nicely on the whole. And it continues to have healthy multiplatform support, including macOS desktop. It's made security hygiene a lot more user-friendly.

1Password's overall flow is much more elegant than, say, LastPass and others. Especially with v8, they've really paid attention to scaling the storage of many passwords and other related secure data.

YES like @OS X Dude said, 1Password operationally makes it SUPER-SIMPLE to share, one-time or longer, even with those who don't have a 1Password account. Shared Vaults are great for families and businesses alike — just drag-and-drop and it's there!
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)