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BTW this process is broken with small display. I have a very tiny Android phone and to backup the codes I need to scan an QR code on this small display, which i

BTW this process is broken with small display. I have a very tiny Android phone and to backup the codes I need to scan an QR code on this small display, which isn't working out. The resolution is too small. And there is no other way to backup Google Authenticator I am aware of. So be careful in smaller display, you probably cannot backup Goggle Authenticator.

dpz 4y ago
There is on a rooted android phone with an adb shell sqlite3 /data/data/com.google.android.apps.authenticator2/databases/database \ 'select email,secret from accounts' not aware of any other way on none rooted/ios
sn0wleppard 4y ago
You may have tried this already, but the QR code gets bigger the more entries you export - have you tried selecting them one at a time?
- Aldipower 4y ago
  Ah, did not knew that, just check it out. Thanks for the hint. Uh, if I select only one entry the QR code gets smaller in itself. So basically same problem still. facepalm :-D
  - matthews2 4y ago
    > if I select only one entry the QR code gets smaller in itself Does it block you from taking a screenshot? Maybe you could screenshot it and then zoom in the gallery app.
    - Aldipower 4y ago
      Yes, it blocks on purpose to take screenshots.
      - tzs 4y ago
        Maybe take a photo with the new device of the small screened old device displaying the QR code and zoom that photo, and then move the zoomed photo to somewhere that the new device's camera can try to scan it? If you can get a copy of that QR code off of the small device using the photo trick, besides using it to import your accounts to Google Authenticator (GA) on your new device you might consider extracting the codes from the backup so you can store them someplace secure separately. That way you can use them to set up TOTP apps other than GA. Here's how you could do that. First, you need to get the QR code from GA to something that can read the QR code and display its contents. The text in the GA code is otpauth-migration://offline?data=... where the ... part is apparently a base64 encoded Google protocol buffer. Once you've got that otpauth-migration URL this program that showed up when searching for information on those URLs can help: otpauth [1]. otpauth --link otpauth-migration://offline?data=... will decode it and give you the otpauth://totp URLs that were in the original QR codes that you originally set up your accounts with. otpauth -qr --link otpauth-migration://offline?data=... will generate a PNG file for each account, name after the account name and site name, and containing the QR code for the account. Going forward, save those PNGs somewhere secure (I use an encrypted tar file). Any new accounts you set up save the QR codes for those as PNGs and add them to your collection. If you keep that collection up to date you will be able to readily handle any device updates or replacements readily or adding new TOTP apps. [1] https://github.com/dim13/otpauth https://github.com/dim13/otpauth
user_7832 4y ago
In developer settings you can change the minimum width. Iirc a larger number makes the UI smaller (tablet style). You can try that if the display is fundamentally large enough. And/or screenshot and zoom in in the gallery. Or use apps like scrpy maybe?

dpz 4y ago

There is on a rooted android phone with an adb shell sqlite3 /data/data/com.google.android.apps.authenticator2/databases/database \ 'select email,secret from accounts' not aware of any other way on none rooted/ios

sn0wleppard 4y ago

You may have tried this already, but the QR code gets bigger the more entries you export - have you tried selecting them one at a time?

Aldipower 4y ago
Ah, did not knew that, just check it out. Thanks for the hint. Uh, if I select only one entry the QR code gets smaller in itself. So basically same problem still. facepalm :-D
- matthews2 4y ago
  > if I select only one entry the QR code gets smaller in itself Does it block you from taking a screenshot? Maybe you could screenshot it and then zoom in the gallery app.
  - Aldipower 4y ago
    Yes, it blocks on purpose to take screenshots.
    - tzs 4y ago
      Maybe take a photo with the new device of the small screened old device displaying the QR code and zoom that photo, and then move the zoomed photo to somewhere that the new device's camera can try to scan it? If you can get a copy of that QR code off of the small device using the photo trick, besides using it to import your accounts to Google Authenticator (GA) on your new device you might consider extracting the codes from the backup so you can store them someplace secure separately. That way you can use them to set up TOTP apps other than GA. Here's how you could do that. First, you need to get the QR code from GA to something that can read the QR code and display its contents. The text in the GA code is otpauth-migration://offline?data=... where the ... part is apparently a base64 encoded Google protocol buffer. Once you've got that otpauth-migration URL this program that showed up when searching for information on those URLs can help: otpauth [1]. otpauth --link otpauth-migration://offline?data=... will decode it and give you the otpauth://totp URLs that were in the original QR codes that you originally set up your accounts with. otpauth -qr --link otpauth-migration://offline?data=... will generate a PNG file for each account, name after the account name and site name, and containing the QR code for the account. Going forward, save those PNGs somewhere secure (I use an encrypted tar file). Any new accounts you set up save the QR codes for those as PNGs and add them to your collection. If you keep that collection up to date you will be able to readily handle any device updates or replacements readily or adding new TOTP apps. [1] https://github.com/dim13/otpauth https://github.com/dim13/otpauth

user_7832 4y ago

In developer settings you can change the minimum width. Iirc a larger number makes the UI smaller (tablet style). You can try that if the display is fundamentally large enough. And/or screenshot and zoom in in the gallery. Or use apps like scrpy maybe?