September 2024 – Agust Tell HN: Twilio quietly removes Authy iOS app from Mac App Store, stops updates | Hacker News
Posted by jpluimers on 2025/05/05
Installing the Authy iOS app on a Apple Silicon Mac (M1/M2/M3/…) used to be the way to keep using Authy in the Mac Desktop, as early this year Authy announced their desktop applications would shut down by August (links further below).
I missed the September 2024 post [Wayback/Archive] Tell HN: Twilio quietly removes Authy iOS app from Mac App Store, stops updates | Hacker News, which basically means that if you had it installed on a Mac, it will keep being installed but never updated.
This was done silently by Authy owner Twilio making new installs are possible, never updating old installs any more thereby effectively decreasing your security.
Anyway: if you want to try side-loading, this is the iOS app link: [Wayback/Archive] Twilio Authy on the App Store.
Sideloadly (links further below) might work, but in reality it likely is better to have your MFA running on a separate device.
Next step in “no more Authy on desktop”
These links were from earlier this year:
- [Wayback/Archive] App not available in MacOS App Store : r/Authy
- [Wayback/Archive] Authy is shutting down its desktop app – The Verge
- [Wayback/Archive] Authy for Desktop End of Life (EOL) – Authy (the earliest archive was late September 2023, but it was never broadly pushed before Bleeping Computer found out in January 2024 as seen below)
Note: The iOS app will still be available to download on M1/M2 powered Apple Mac devices.
The above note is not present any more in the current (and moved) version of the EOL announcement [Wayback/Archive] User guide: End of Life (EOL) for Twilio Authy Desktop app – Twilio Help Center which now states that they will cripple your desktop Authy data before removing the desktop from your Authy account without warning. Not nice, but secure.
It also means the desktop apps were using more than just the desktop API and worse: the desktop apps were phased out earlier, as according to
[Wayback/Archive] Business customer guide: End of Life (EOL) for use of Authy API with Twilio Authy Desktop apps – Twilio Help Center
The Authy Desktop app for Linux, MacOS and Windows reached their End-of-Life on March 19, 2024 and are no longer supported.
This was the early august first version of the original user guide [Archive] was the first I could find breaking the M1/M2 promise, but in addition it also mentions this:
Note: The Authy app lacks an export feature, therefore you have to re-enable the 2FA method and re-add the token in your new application…
Some people however have experimented with exporting their data though:
- [Wayback/Archive] Export TOTP tokens from Authy · GitHub
- [Wayback/Archive] Export Authy TOTP to enter in another app : Bitwarden
- [Wayback/Archive] Authy for Desktop End of Life (EOL) – Authy (the earliest archive was late September 2023, but it was never broadly pushed before Bleeping Computer found out in January 2024 as seen below)
- [Wayback/Archive] Bleeping Computer: Twilio will ditch its Authy desktop 2FA app in August, goes mobile only
- [Wayback/Archive] Why does Apple not include all iOS apps on the Mac App Store for Apple Silicon Macs? – Quora
- [Wayback/Archive] How to Sideload (Unsupported) iOS Apps to Apple Silicon (M1/M1 Pro/M1 Max/M2) : sideloadly
[Wayback/Archive] old.reddit.com/link/wcpzn3/video/n4i88w26ywe91/player
Potential alternatives
- [Wayback/Archive] 2FAS – the Internet’s favorite open-source authenticator
- [Wayback/Archive] Best App to Migrate To : Authy
- [Wayback/Archive] Authy stopt in augustus met desktopapps en raadt mobiele apps aan – Computer – Nieuws – Tweakers
- [Wayback/Archive] I switched from @authyapp to @apple Passwords in iOS 18 for the following reasons: – @apple ditched support for legacy widget, which @authyapp was still using. Hence I lost a convenient way to copy / paste the auth code into the mobile browser. – @apple keychain, or passwords in iOS 18, prompts you directly to auto-fill auth codes, which is super convenient and hence compensates for the point above. And, wherever possible, I switch to passkeys too.
Installing iOS apps on Apple Silicon MacOS
(fails for Authy, but included for completeness)
- [Wayback/Archive] View, redownload and manage apps in the App Store on Mac – Apple Support (UK)
- [Wayback/Archive] Use iPhone and iPad apps on Mac with Apple silicon – Apple Support (UK)
Sideloading iOS apps on MacOS even when not enabled in the App Store
- [Wayback/Archive] Sideload apps not on App Store – Gaming on M1 Apple silicon Macs and MacBooks, bugs, fixes, compatiblity and troubleshooting guides – AppleGamingWiki (probably outdated)
- [Wayback/Archive] Independent marketplace for iOS, iPadOS, MacOS, Apple devices. Publish your apps for free. Install apps that you want securely and privately – appdb
- [Wayback/Archive] New Sideload Workaround for macOS 11.3 Tutorial + Genshin Impact Install + Controller Emulation – YouTube
Getting the .ipa files for iOS apps:
- [Wayback/Archive] GitHub – majd/ipatool: Command-line tool that allows searching and downloading app packages (known as ipa files) from the iOS App Store
Queries
- [Wayback/Archive] brew install authy – Google Search (these solutions all come down to [Wayback/Archive] authy — Homebrew Formulaeand fail because the binary referenced at [Wayback/Archive] homebrew-cask/Casks/a/authy.rb at 5eb92927fe232b53bb9b7653a17b9e6d84561ba8 · Homebrew/homebrew-cask · GitHubis has no back-end API to talk to any more)
- [Wayback/Archive] install ios apps on mac – Google Suche
- [Wayback/Archive] sideload ipad on macbook – Google Suche
- [Wayback/Archive] authy ios 18 widget – Sök på Google
- [Wayback/Archive] authy on desktop – Google Search
- [Wayback/Archive] sideloading authy on macos m3 – Google Search
- [Wayback/Archive] ios macos sideloading – Sök på Google
- [Wayback/Archive] download ios ipa files – Sök på Google
- [Wayback/Archive] export authy totp – Google Search
--jeroen
The Wiert Corner - irregular stream of stuff 
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