Microsoft authenticator: a few questions

hi,

recently I started using Microsoft Authenticator (on my iPhone) to facilitate 2FA. I have a few questions that I find Microsoft itself not clear or somewhat inconclusive about (for instance here), so I figured I'll ask them here. I hope to be in the right subforums.

I switched on 'backup to iCloud' in the Authenticator. In my iPhone settings I also configured to back up Authenticator.
My first question is: is this particular Authenticator-instance (the one installed on my iPhone with a particular, configured set of websites) somehow also backed up to a Microsoft Account (a), if so which one (b). If it is not backed up is it then somehow connected to a Microsoft Account (c)? and if so which one (d)?

I have a few more questions, but let me start with this one. Maybe I'll open new threads, maybe I'll continue here. Let's see.

Thanks in advance, kind regards, Kan

Only if you add those sites to MS authenticator. I use ios 16.3 Password 2fa with my sutes and only keep authenticator as a backup. I hardly open it up anymore.

thanks Bastet Bro67!

Bastet, this is my experience indeed. As said I switched on 'backup to iCloud' for the MA in iPhone-settings and in the MA itself. Next to that I indicated a recovery account (a Microsoft account that is) in the MA itself. But I cannot find any indication in my Micr. Account that I did so, as one would expect. (I cannot find an indication in iCloud either, but that counts for all straight app-backups one makes).

What I wanna do now is install another Microsoft Authenticator (MA nr.2) on another iPhone I own. This iPhone nr.2 uses another AppleID. This situation (using two AppleID's on two iPhones) cannot be changed and has to remain as is.

My question: is there a way to have a MA on this other iPhone nr.2 thereby importing or restoring the 'contents' of the MA nr.1 on iPhone nr.1? I tried to do this using the Microsoft Account mentioned above. This did not work.

I would wanna avoid logging into AppleID nr.1 on iPhone nr.2 as I do not know what will happen to the contents (photo's, notes, settings, etc) when I do so.

My 2nd question: in fact I already installed a MA on iPhone nr.2. and tried to get the contents of the MA from iPhone nr.1 by logging into my Micr. Account. As said above: sounds logical right? Yes, but it didn't work. As I understood all instances of MA are registered somewhere with Microsoft (as they need to be to function). Do I need to get rid of any kind of registration of MA nr.2 and iPhone nr.2? If so, how would I do that?

Kind regards, thanks in advance, Kan

ps: I do happen to have the time to occupy myself with this kind of stuff, but this is way to complicated (as it is for me also) and time consuming for the average user. It's a bit absurd to be honest.

thanks a lot Bastet,

Your two iPhones operate under the same AppleID or a different AppleID?

I was thinking I could go over all the accounts in my MA nr.1 , renew the key for each account and then read it with the MA nr.1 and nr.2 . Should do the trick.