User level: Level 1 (4 points)I lost my phone 3 years ago and i set up a new apple account on a friends phone with a new email. (i didn’t have a SIM card for a month) now they still send messages for two factor authentication to him, and i can’t chance it to my number. what can i do
[Re-Titled by Moderator]
Original Title: Two factor authentication
Posted on Oct 29, 2026 4:14 AM
User level: Level 10 (242,520 points)Oct 29, 2026 11:18 AM in response to gaja48
gaja48 wrote:
I lost my phone 3 years ago and i set up a new apple account on a friends phone with a new email. (i didn’t have a SIM card for a month) now they still send messages for two factor authentication to him, and i can’t chance it to my number. what can i do
[Re-Titled by Moderator]
Original Title: Two factor authentication
How did you do this exactly?
How exactly is he getting these messages? Over SMS?
Phones can only be signed in to one account a time, and there's no way to create a new account while the iPhone is already signed in to an Apple Account. He would have needed to sign out of his account and then you could create one when trying to sign in in Settings ➜ Account. In which case it would appear his device is still signed in to your account and he would need to sign out of it to stop getting your Two-Factor Authentication codes.
Also, two-factor authentication messages are sent first to trusted devices, that is devices that are logged to your Apple account, and only if you choose to send them some other way, would they be send as SMS or voice call to a trusted phone number, which can be any number. If he is getting SMS messages for your log in attempt, then the question becomes why you are trying to send the secondary messages to begin with?
Also note, trusted phone numbers for 2-Factor Authentication should never be your own number, as that defeats the purpose of having a secondary number to get the codes to log in to your Account when you don't have access to your iPhone or other trusted device. The trusted phone number should a number not linked to your own iPhone that you can access when you don't have direct access to your iPhone.
click here ➜ Two-factor authentication for Apple Account - Apple Support
If you want to change the trusted number used for send the codes over SMS or voice call,. you can do so from your Apple Account's settings.
click here ➜ About trusted phone numbers and trusted devices for Apple Account - Apple Support
Originally posted at discussions.apple.com/thread/256385201