You can set up a variety of recovery methods to access your account if you lose your two-factor authentication credentials.
In addition to securely storing your two-factor authentication recovery codes, we strongly recommend configuring one or more additional recovery methods.
In this guide
- Downloading your two-factor authentication recovery codes
- Generating a new set of recovery codes
- Configuring FIDO U2F as a fallback method
Downloading your two-factor authentication recovery codes
When you configure two-factor authentication, you'll download and save your 2FA recovery codes. If you lose access to your phone, you can authenticate to GitHub Enterprise using your recovery codes. You can also download your recovery codes at any point after enabling two-factor authentication.
To keep your account secure, don't share or distribute your recovery codes. We recommend saving them with a secure password manager, such as:
If you generate new recovery codes or disable and re-enable 2FA, the recovery codes in your security settings automatically update.
- In the upper-right corner of any page, click your profile photo, then click Settings.
In the user settings sidebar, click Security.
Under "Two-factor authentication", click Save your recovery codes.
- Save your recovery codes in a safe place. Your recovery codes can help you get back into your account if you lose access.
- To save your recovery codes on your device, click Download.
- To save a hard copy of your recovery codes, click Print.
- To copy your recovery codes for storage in a password manager, click Copy.
Generating a new set of recovery codes
Once you use a recovery code to regain access to your account, it cannot be reused. If you've used all 16 recovery codes, you can generate another list of codes. Generating a new set of recovery codes will invalidate any codes you previously generated.
- In the upper-right corner of any page, click your profile photo, then click Settings.
In the user settings sidebar, click Security.
To create another batch of recovery codes, click Generate new recovery codes.
Configuring FIDO U2F as a fallback method
You can set up FIDO U2F as a secondary two-factor authentication method, and use your U2F keys to regain access to your account. For more information, see "Configuring two-factor authentication."
