Question about enabling two-factor authentication in Gmail

August 26, 2020 12:56 PM

I want to enable two-factor authentication on Gmail for myself and my family members, but I first want to know exactly what will happen with the native email apps on our iPhones and Android phones.

This seems like it should be a common question, but my Google-fu is failing me. I'm seeking a user-friendly, detailed explanation about the steps I need to take to ensure that we can still access email through our native email apps on IOS (iPhone) and Android phones. I can find lots of information about what happens when you try to log in to your email account through a web browser on a computer, but it's not clear to me how it will all work on our cell phones. I did find this discussion, but it's from 2014, and it seems to be out of date. And Google's own instructions don't seem to apply to the native email apps (I think).

posted by akk2014 to Computers & Internet (7 answers total)

Are you asking if you'll need to reauthenticate? I'm not sure about that but regardless once you're authenticated the account remains connected to the app indefinitely. You won't be logging in every time. I've had gmail 2fa enabled for years and I only get a secret code prompt for the few times I need to log in via a new machine.
posted by GuyZero at 12:58 PM on August 26, 2020

Response by poster: > Are you asking if you'll need to reauthenticate?

I'm not sure... I guess I'm asking about how to authenticate initially. There's some discussion on-line about special one-time codes you need to enter that are specific to the email app, but then there is other discussion saying that you don't need to do that anymore. So I'm confused.
posted by akk2014 at 1:00 PM on August 26, 2020

When I turned on 2FA nothing happened on my Android phone - pretty sure the phone itself is tied to the Google account and thus authenticates the mail app - when I log in via the browser, it sends a push authentication to my phone through my Google account. I think you're not finding anything because it's a non-issue.
posted by epanalepsis at 1:05 PM on August 26, 2020

Response by poster: From what I gather, it's more of an issue with iPhones. So I'm not sure what to do about that.
posted by akk2014 at 1:07 PM on August 26, 2020

I believe the one time codes are for third party applications, otherwise Google takes care of it in their app.

I don't have an iPhone, but Apple Mail would be a third party non-gmail app.
posted by bradbane at 1:11 PM on August 26, 2020

Best answer: On iOS, I think once you enable 2FA, you'll need to re-authenticate the Gmail account via Settings > Passwords & Accounts. You'll know if you need to because you'll get a popup when you open the Mail app that it needs a re-auth.

So you'll go to Settings > Passwords & Accounts, tap on the Gmail account you enabled 2FA for, enter your gmail email and tap Next, enter your password and tap Next, enter your 2FA code. If you're using a phone number you'll get a text message and be able to use one tap to fill in the number. If you're using an authenticator app you will grab it there. Once you have authenticated with 2FA you won't need to enter it again and Mail will work just like it did before.
posted by homesickness at 5:16 PM on August 26, 2020 [2 favorites]

Best answer: The prevalence of support for 2FA is a lot more widespread now than it used to be. As said above, iOS handles it just fine these days. For anything that still doesn’t, there is also the option for “app passwords” in Google accounts. These work like alternative passwords, which bypass the second factor, and can be individually created and revoked. The account security page tracks the use of the application passwords, and the access provided is limited. It’s basically a way to still check your email using some old copy of Eudora, without giving any party that compromises the password access to all the rest of your Google stuff.
posted by jraenar at 12:16 PM on August 27, 2020