Ente Auth is a free, open-source app for the codes used in two-factor authentication. It is made by Ente Technologies, Inc., a US company that also runs an encrypted photo storage service, and runs on Android, iPhone, Windows, macOS and Linux, with a web app for viewing codes.

You can use it without an account, on one device. With a free Ente account, the app keeps an encrypted copy of your codes on Ente’s servers and syncs it between devices. Ente says only your password or recovery key can open that copy; an outside audit has checked Ente’s server, but not the apps that do the encryption.

Where Your Secrets Live

Each service you add gives the app a secret, usually as a QR code, from which it calculates the TOTP codes. Whoever holds that secret can make your codes without your phone. On your device, Ente Auth keeps the secrets in a local database encrypted with a key that sits in the system’s secure key storage, such as the iPhone Keychain or the Android Keystore.

You can add a lock screen that asks for the device unlock, a four-digit PIN or a password. Ente’s help pages say plainly that this lock only guards the app’s screens and does not encrypt the codes a second time. On Android, a separate setting blocks screenshots and screen recording of the app.

Sync and Backups

The first screen offers two buttons, Sign up and Log in, and a smaller “Use without backups” link below them. If you create an account, the app encrypts every code, along with its name, notes and tags, before uploading it. Ente’s architecture document describes a chain of keys: each code has its own key, those keys are encrypted with a key for Auth, and that one with your account’s master key. The master key is stored on Ente’s server only in encrypted form, opened by a key derived from your password or by your recovery key, so by Ente’s account the server sees nothing about your codes.

That is Ente’s own statement. The app’s code is public and anyone can read how the encryption works, but no audit of the Auth apps has been published. A copy on Ente’s servers protects you if you lose your phone, and it also ties your codes to your Ente account. Anyone who signs in with your email code and your password can open the synced copy on a new device, so the account’s password and its own second factor matter. If you use the same account for Ente’s other apps, it is one account with one password and one recovery key.

Without an account, the codes live only on that device. The app can write an encrypted backup file once a day to a folder you choose, protected with a password of at least eight characters, and keeps the five most recent files. This is off until you switch it on. Ente warns that moving a phone to a new one or restoring a system backup may not bring offline codes along, so the backup file or an export is the only safe copy.

Losing Your Phone

With an account, signing in on a new device with your email and password brings your codes back. If you forget the password, the 24-word recovery key you were given at sign-up lets you set a new one. Ente says that if you are signed out everywhere and have lost both the password and the recovery key, its support cannot recover the account or the codes.

If you used the app without an account and kept no backup file, a lost phone means the codes are gone, and you will have to recover access at every service separately, using its own recovery codes or support.

Account and What the App Reports

You do not need an account to use the app. With one, Ente’s privacy disclosure for the App Store lists your email address, a user ID and the encrypted codes as the data it holds. Google Play’s data-safety section lists an email address as the only data collected.

Crash reporting is off until you switch it on in the settings, according to the app’s public source code and Ente’s own disclosure, which says the app “collects no data by default.” Ente’s privacy policy says it does not collect analytics about how you use the apps. Even without an account, the desktop apps and the Android app downloaded from GitHub may contact Ente’s server at start-up to check for updates.

Moving Your Codes

Ente Auth lets you take every code with you. It exports an encrypted file whose format Ente documents in full: a key derived from the export password with Argon2id, XChaCha20-Poly1305 encryption, and inside, one standard otpauth link per code. Ente’s command-line tool can decrypt that file, and it can also write scheduled encrypted backups for people with an account. A plain export gives the same standard links without encryption, and another option saves a web page with a QR code for each entry; any single code can also be shown as a QR code. The plain exports contain your secrets in readable form, and the app warns you before saving them.

The app imports the export files of about a dozen other authenticator and password apps, Ente’s own encrypted export, and any plain text file of standard links. It can also send someone a link that shows one code for two, five or ten minutes; Ente says the link carries codes calculated in advance, not the secret behind them.

Apps and Code Types

Ente Auth runs on Android (Google Play, F-Droid and a GitHub download), iPhone and iPad, and has native desktop apps for Windows, macOS and Linux. The web app shows the codes synced to your account, but Ente says adding or editing codes needs the mobile or desktop app. With an account, every device stays in sync.

It supports time-based and counter-based codes with SHA-1, SHA-256 and SHA-512, plus Steam codes. Entries can have icons, tags, notes and pins, and the app shows the next code before the current one runs out. Deleted entries go to a trash folder you empty yourself.

Open Source and Audits

The Auth apps and the server that stores the synced copies are public on GitHub under the AGPL v3 licence, so anyone can read the code and run their own server. F-Droid builds and signs its own copy of the Android app from the source; Ente’s help page calls that build reproducible, but F-Droid does not compare it with Ente’s own app, and nothing lets you check the copies from Google Play, the App Store or GitHub against the code. The app does not offer reproducible builds in the sense of a check you can run yourself.

In October 2025 the German firm Cure53 ran a security audit and penetration test of Ente’s server, its login and access control and the machines it runs on. Ente ordered it and CERN, an Ente customer, sponsored it. The report lists 15 findings, 12 of them fixed or mitigated during the audit. Ente says the audit covered Auth because the same server stores Auth’s encrypted codes; the report itself does not name Auth, and the Auth apps were not in scope. An earlier Cure53 review in 2023, also ordered by Ente, examined the encryption design of Ente’s photo service at the time and that app’s encryption code. No audit has checked the code in the Auth apps that encrypts your secrets before upload, which is where the claim that Ente cannot read them would be proven.

Ente takes security reports by email or through GitHub under a published disclosure policy, but it offers no bug bounty.

Incidents and Vulnerabilities

The project’s incident history has one advisory that touches the account behind Auth. On 28 July 2026 Ente disclosed a high-severity flaw in its server’s emergency-contact feature, which lets a person you trust recover your account after a waiting period. A contact you had added and who had accepted could approve their own recovery request at once, skip the waiting period in which you could refuse it, then reset the password and remove the account’s second factor. With the account recovered, that contact could also open the synced codes.

Ente fixed its service on 9 July 2026, and Ente says its logs for the hosted service show no sign that it had been used. According to the app’s public source code, the Auth app has no screen for adding emergency contacts, so the risk applied to people who had set one up in another Ente app on the same account.

Ownership and Funding

Ente was started in 2020 and Ente Technologies, Inc. has been a US corporation since 2022; its terms are governed by Delaware law. Ente’s privacy policy says its servers are in Europe and that your personal information may be accessed from the US. The company says it is a sustainable business funded by customer subscriptions rather than venture capital, and since July 2026 it publishes its revenue and customer numbers.

Auth is free, including sync, with no ads or paid tier, and earns Ente nothing directly: Ente asks people who want to support it to subscribe to its photo storage. When Auth launched in December 2022, Ente said existing users would keep it for free if it ever became paid. Because the code is open and the export format is documented, your codes do not depend on the company staying around.

Pros and Cons

Works offline without an account, or with an encrypted copy synced through a free account
Apps and server are open source under AGPL v3, with documented encryption
Every code can leave the app as an encrypted file in a documented format, as standard links or as QR codes
Runs on Android, iPhone, Windows, macOS and Linux, with a web app for viewing codes
Crash reporting is off by default, and the app has no ads

The claim that Ente cannot read synced codes rests on Ente's documentation and public code; no audit has checked the Auth apps' own encryption code
The first screen pushes towards an account; offline use needs you to set up your own backup files
No bug bounty and no way to check a downloaded app against the code
In July 2026 an emergency contact added in another Ente app could take over the shared account (fixed)

Our Rating

Ente Auth suits people who want their codes on a phone and a computer at once, with a copy that survives a lost phone and a way out in a documented format. It also works fully offline for anyone who prefers no account at all. It does not suit someone who wants an independent check of the app’s own encryption before trusting a company’s servers with a copy of their secrets.

Secret Custody & Recovery7.5/10
On the device the codes are encrypted with a key held in the system's secure storage. The first screen steers you towards an Ente account, and with one the app uploads a copy encrypted with keys that, by Ente's documentation, only your password or recovery key can open; no audit has checked the code in the Auth apps that encrypts your secrets before upload. Without an account there is no copy unless you turn on encrypted backup files or export one yourself.
Account & Metadata Privacy8.5/10
The app works without an account, and sync needs only an email address and a password. Crash reporting is off until you switch it on, and the store listings declare an email address as the only data collected, for people with an account. The desktop apps and the GitHub build for Android still check Ente's server for updates.
Transparency & Verifiability7.5/10
The apps and the server are open source under AGPL v3, and the encryption and export format are documented. Cure53 audited Ente's server in 2025 on Ente's order, but not the Auth apps. There is no bug bounty and no way to check a downloaded app against the code, and in July 2026 Ente fixed a server flaw in emergency-contact recovery.
Usability, Portability & Platforms9.0/10
The app runs on Android, iPhone, Windows, macOS and Linux, with a web app for viewing codes, and syncs between them. You can export everything as an encrypted file in a documented format, as plain standard links or as a page of QR codes, and import from many other apps. It supports time-based, counter-based and Steam codes.
Funding & Sustainability7.5/10
The app is free with no ads or paid tier. Ente pays for it from its photo storage subscriptions and describes itself as a sustainable business funded by customer subscriptions and not reliant on venture capital. Auth has been out since 2022.

Overall8.0/10

Secret Custody & Recovery 30% · Account & Metadata Privacy 20% · Transparency & Verifiability 20% · Usability, Portability & Platforms 20% · Funding & Sustainability 10%

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