Duo app insisting on google account but I already have a non-google duo account

[TechOnTop]

I have a duo account which I use to get into several things (paypal etc) under an email address that is not a gmail address. Worked fine on old phone. New phone. Install duo. It asks me to log back in to activate, of course. It first assumes it should use the gmail address my (android) phone is registered to. I click “already have an account”. It goes to a screen to enter the email adr I want to connect to but above that box it says “sign in with your google acnt”. Of course I don’t want to. I go ahead an put in my non-google email adr (the one I use to log into duo online acnt, so I know it works) and the app says “can’t find that google acnt”. Well of course. It’s not a google acnt, but it is an email adr I’ve used for a long time with my duo acnt. How do I get blankety blank google out of the way to let me log in?

[Amy2]

Hi @TechOnTop,
Unlike most apps, Duo Mobile does not have a username and password associated with it. You cannot log in to the Duo Mobile app itself. It exists on your phone and is tied to a specific device’s hardware security module (HSM), which makes it unique across devices. Your Duo accounts can be backed up and restored across devices using Duo Restore, which makes use of your platform’s recovery feature - Google Drive backup via a Gmail address on Android and iCloud backup using an iCloud account on iOS. This is why you are being prompted to enter a Gmail account.

If you didn’t back up your accounts on your old device, you will have to manually reconnect them on the new device. I recommend checking out our guide to Duo Restore for more info. Let me know if you have further questions, and I’ll try to help as best I can!

[TechOnTop]

I did not know if I had ever turned on restore. Either I never did or it was so long ago I didn’t remember. Only after finding a work around and solving my own problem did I find, in related notes that, yes, long ago, I had established restore. In any case there seem to be two problems here that Duo could address in their user interface.

One is that it was not at all clear thats what the app was trying to do, fetch my restore, if I had one. I just assumed installing the app from the app store and entering my credentials, just as I do when I go to the admin web page, would have it connected to my account. The app gave me no clue that that was not what it was doing, that it was trying to connect me to restore. If it had said that, “If you ever set up restore that’s what we’re trying to connect you to now and it is those credentials, whatever you set up for restore, that we need here”, then I would have known. Oh. Restore. Maybe, maybe not, I’ll have to dig into old notes and see. In any case it would have put me on the right track.

Actually I’m surprised I ever set up restore. It apparently gets saved to google cloud? Or has to be done with a google account? Any more I’m too wary of everything going through google and I would not want to do that. And anyway, why? That is why is it connected with google? Duo is its own entity. Why wouldn’t backup and restore be an entirely Duo thing and keep google out of it?

The second issue is why, then, doesn’t the app have an option to just put in Duo credentials and your in? I finally remembered that I could go to the admin web page, send myself a fresh invitation. On my phone that invitation just leads me to fetch the app and apply credentials that were in the activation text. Why couldn’t the app have simply asked for that? Or at least point out the alternative of having your admin send you a fresh invitation?

This all seems like a confused system.

[Amy2]

Thank you for providing such detailed feedback for us. I’ve shared your comments with the mobile team for further consideration.

[Danny_Matchett]

im having the same issue and there is no way to get to the menu to get to the settings to do a duo restore

[Amy2]

Hi Danny, are you trying to turn Duo Restore on for the first time, or to restore your accounts to a new device? Also, which platform are you on - Android or iOS?
There is a video that walks you through how to restore your accounts on Android and how to do the same on iOS.
If you’re trying to enable Duo Restore for the first time, there should be a hamburger menu icon in the upper left of the screen, and when you select that, there should be an option for Settings > Duo Restore.

[SarahK]

I’m having the same issue as the original poster. I need to log in through my work email address, which is not my gmail address. I did log in through Google to see what would happen and nothing happened. I’m just constantly prompted to log into Google. So now I’m just in this annoying loop of trying to sign in. I deleted and reinstalled the app and nothing changed. Why is there only a Google option for “I have an existing account”? What am I supposed to do now? I can log into my Duo account through my employer but it doesn’t help me to be able to use my phone as an authenticate point. Argh.

[DuoKristina]

Duo Mobile for Android only supports creating app backups to Google Drive, which is why it is prompting for a Google account.

This is totally independent of whatever services you use Duo Mobile with to approve login requests and generate passcodes.

@SarahK , you may use Duo Mobile for login approvals to services used by your employer, and log into those services with your work email. If you also wanted to backup the Duo Mobile app information on your phone that is when you would need to provide Google account information, so Duo Mobile can store that backup in that Google account’s Google Drive storage.

Are you trying to migrate to a new phone?

Did you previously log into a Google account on your old phone to create a backup?

If you did not create a backup of Duo Mobile to Google Drive on your old phone then there is nothing to restore to your new phone.

It is also possible for your organization’s Duo admin to disable the Instant Restore option for Duo Mobile if they don’t want users restoring from backups.

You should contact your work help desk for assistance reactivating Duo Mobile on your new phone so that you can one again log into services with your work email and Duo Push or a Duo Mobile passcode.

I hope this explanation helps!

[Cortney_B]

I’m sorry but this reasoning is the silliest thing I’ve ever read. I installed duo for work and it didn’t ask me for my Google info. I restored my phone and now it wants me to connect to Google drive and wtf would y’all do that instead of having a valid sign in? Another reason I hate duo. It’s so secure I can’t get into my own stuff. Awesome.

[VNJoe]

I think the wording in the app needs to be changed to be clear. “I have existing accounts” should actually say “Restore my accounts” because what everyone on here is saying is that they want to “Set up accounts” as you’ve explained it. The Google prompt is for a Restore process only, not to set up Google for MFA. Does this sound correct?

Just my 2 cents to help users.