One of the simplest methods to stop your online accounts from being hacked is to activate two-factor authentication. The safety measure, usually often called 2FA or multifactor authentication, requires you to enter a numerical code along with your username and password. So even when somebody will get your password, they will’t break into your account without having your sign-in code too.

For years, safety consultants have advisable utilizing authentication apps to generate these codes. All it’s important to do is scan a QR code for the service you need to flip 2FA on for, and the app will generate a brand new log-in code round each 30 seconds. This week, Google has given its 2FA app, Google Authenticator, a much-needed overhaul.

Google redesigned Authenticator, making it much less clunky, and within the course of added one probably useful new device: the flexibility to sync your sign-in codes to your Google account and to completely different phones and tablets. This primarily means your Instagram, Gmail, or Reddit 2FA codes—plus, all the opposite accounts you have got it turned on for—will probably be backed up. The tweak makes it far much less burdensome to change units in case your cellphone with 2FA codes saved on it’s misplaced or stolen—and it could even prevent from being locked out of some accounts totally.

“Since one-time codes in Authenticator were only stored on a single device, a loss of that device meant that users lost their ability to sign in to any service on which they’d set up 2FA using Authenticator,” Christiaan Brand, a bunch product supervisor at Google, wrote in a blog post announcing the change. Brand says the sync function has been one of the vital requested because the Authenticator app was launched in 2010. “This change means users are better protected from lockout and that services can rely on users retaining access, increasing both convenience and security.”

Syncing your Google Authenticator codes now occurs via your Google account—the function is offered on the most recent iOS and Android variations of Google’s app. Authenticator provides you the choice to make use of the app together with your Google login, and if you choose this feature, your Google profile will present within the high proper nook of the app, subsequent to a sync icon. When I downloaded Authenticator on my iPad after organising sync on my cellphone, the codes appeared as soon as I had logged in. There can also be the choice to maintain utilizing Google Authenticator with out logging in to a Google account.

Jake Moore, world safety advisor at safety agency ESET, says he has beforehand been locked out of an authenticator app and is aware of the frustrations that include making an attempt to log again in to all of your accounts once you don’t have entry to your sign-in codes. “Upgrading a phone has been made easier over the years with cloud storage, but authenticating apps have been slow to the party and held back reservedly on security,” Moore says.