Duo Restore without Google Drive

[Late1]

Hello!

I’m using Duo Authenticator on my mobile but trying to move away from Google ecosystem.

The Duo Restore functionality is really neat, but I couldn’t find a way to set it to backup to another cloud service (e.g. Nextcloud) or even locally.

Is there any way of backing up the accounts to a file / folder locally which I could manage as I wish or am I tied to use Google Drive for this purpose? Also if I just back up fully the application data from my Android, would I be able to restore the 2FA accounts as-is?

Thank you in advance!

[Amy2]

Hi @Late,
There is not currently a way to backup Duo Mobile accounts other than using the backup method for your device (Google Drive for Android and iCloud backup for iOS). This is a pretty common request we hear from users and particularly Duo admins, so I will be sure to note your interest in this and share it with our mobile team.

Late:

Is there any way of backing up the accounts to a file / folder locally which I could manage as I wish or am I tied to use Google Drive for this purpose? Also if I just back up fully the application data from my Android, would I be able to restore the 2FA accounts as-is?

No, exfiltrating app data to put another device will not work for Duo accounts, and there is not a way to back up the accounts locally as stated above. I’ll share your request with the team though for future consideration! Thanks for asking this question in the Duo Community. We’re always glad to have your feedback.

[RobertKlauco]

I am not sure if there is any voting going on, but I would vote for this feature.
I use Duo for a LOT of services (really love the app), but transferring to non-google phone is a pain - I have to manually go through all the linked services, disable 2-factor, re-enable and register new Duo.
Quite bad…

[Amy2]

Hi @RobertKlauco,
Currently there is not a voting system for ideas built-in to the Duo Community. However, we do have an internal feature request portal that either a Duo Support agent, your Account Executive, or Customer Success Manager, can add your name to in order to log your interest. I also collect and share feedback from the forums and our Duo Mobile reviews with the product team, so I will be sure to document your interest.

[RobertKlauco]

Thanks! I really like the app, so I converted all my accounts manually (that was a task! ). Still, for future, it would be great to have this.
I’ll check who represents our company, but I have to state one thing - only 2 of my accounts are company-based, the rest is private use.
If it would change anything, I would be willing to pay for some “pro” version to have this as a premium feature.

[RobertKlauco]

@Amy Is there some way how to sponsor such development?

[Amy2]

Hi Robert,
No, not that I’m aware of. I’ll double check with the team though. We take multiple factors into consideration when deciding which features to implement based on official feature requests. These are usually prioritized by the number of customers requesting a feature, the number of customers who will use said feature, the overall business impact, as well as other considerations.

[dannykeele2257]

cisco is supposed to be high on security but for some reason they push untrusted ecosystems such as google. our company blocks google as part of our DLP policy hence we have to tell end users to only use duo for duo push and nothing else as it cannot be backed up period.

[DuoKristina]

@dannykeele2257 the way Duo Mobile backup and restore works has changed since this thread was originally created back in 2021. The Duo Mobile app data is now included in the Android cloud backup (similar to how the Duo Mobile app data on iOS is included in iCloud backup), so access to Google Drive is no longer needed.

Is your comment feedback about the legacy implementation that relied on Google Drive, or just a general comment that you wish we did not rely on Apple or Google device backup and restore entirely?

You may contact Duo Support or your Duo/Cisco account team or customer success team to submit a feature request for Duo Mobile backup/restore that does not rely on any specific cloud vendor.

[Philip D'Ath]

Hijacking this conversation, we use Android for Work.  Google does not allow Google Drive or Android Cloud backup to be used in a work profile.  We currently don't have a way to be able to backup Duo Mobile.

It would be great to support Microsoft OneDrive for Duo Mobile backups ...

Even an option to export an encrypted backup to the local phone file system would help, then we could copy that file across.

[DuoKristina]

You may contact Duo Support or your Duo/Cisco account team or customer success team to submit a feature request for Duo Mobile backup/restore that does not rely on any specific cloud vendor, or that supports multiple cloud vendors.