Potential future iCloud Issue - Please advise?

[TGITC]

Hopefully this should make sense, as it's not the clearest thing to try and explain. So, I have my iCloud account on my iMac, which I've had for about 11 years. I have certain important documents saved to iCloud, plus my 'contacts' app which I also use for note taking etc.

Now at some point, I've obviously enabled 2 factor security and this isn't an issue in itself. However when I login on my windows PC (Which is relatively new) irregardless of if I use a browser, or the win 10 icloud application that sits in my task bar, occasionally I get asked to login again, with user and password. OK, all good so far, but here in lies the issue...

Whenever I am asked to re-login, It always wants to send a six digit code to my iMac as 'security'. It never wants to use my phone (non iPhone) despite having the number and even when I need to re-login on my iMac, it still sends the security code to the very same iMac that I'm using....

Eventually, my iMac will probably give up the ghost and no longer work, so what happens then, when I cant use my iMac?

I understand that I can't turn off 2 factor authentication (From Google Searches) but can I force it to send the code to my phone instead?

Hopefully that explains my potential issue - That I'm worried that when I can no longer boot up my iMac, that I'm gonna be locked out of my iCloud account on my PC (despite having the email and password etc) as I wont be able to get the code, that it insists on sending to the iMac? Thanks in advance for any advice

 

[MacInWin]

Here is Apple's article on 2FA: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204915
In it, it talks about "trusted phone numbers" which, I think, uses SMS to send the verification codes. If you have a smartphone, make sure that you have set up 2FA to use that phone number as "trusted."

 

[Raz0rEdge]

I hadn't logged into iCloud on the browser for a long time and when I did so right now, I got a notification on the Mac Mini (which was being used to login), my iPhone XS and Apple Watch at the same time. I chose to use the Apple Watch to authenticate and clicked Allow which got rid of the notification from the phone and Mac and I had the 6 digits on the watch to enter.

A Trust Device per Apple are the iPhones, Macs and so on. Since you have a non-iPhone, you're going down the Trusted Phone Number route and SMS to get the code. Technically you shouldn't have to do anything special for this to go down that route, but since you DO have a Trusted Device with your iMac, it might be stopping there as opposed to going down the SMS route since they prefer that more than SMS which is less secure.

 

[TGITC]

Thanks for both of your replies. I went to the appleid page as suggested in the link from MacInWin to see if my phone was 'trusted' - It was, but in logging in to find out on my imac, I still had to enter a code, which again was sent to the same imac that I am using !

It appears that I'm at a loss really as it only seems to want to send an ID code to my original iMac. It does NOT want to send anything to my phone.

Just have to keep my icloud and contacts backed up to the PC or my phone and hope that I get a few more good years out of the imac...

Thanks anyway

 

[MacInWin]

Call Apple support. You can contact them at Apple.com, click on "Support" and follow the directions to get scheduled for a support call. Only an iPhone can be "trusted" but you can have a "trusted phone number" that should be getting an SMS text with the codes. Backing up is a good thing, but it's not going to replace being able to get to your iCloud account when you need to replace it.

 

[ferrarr]

On my Mac Mini, if I go into System Preferences > Apple ID, under Password & Security, I have two trusted numbers listed. My iPhone and my home landline, which Apple will call and give me the six digit code, if I request it. Which I needed it before when my old iPhone 8 died, and I was setting up my daughters iPhone 6 for my temporary use. So you can add your Android phone as a trusted number.

 

[chscag]

So you can add your Android phone as a trusted number.

He's already done that. However, Apple keeps sending the 2FA code to his iMac, not the phone.

The code in fact might be getting sent to his Android but it would have to go as SMS which I have found to be unreliable.

 

[MacInWin]

And that's why I suggested contacting Apple for support. I find SMS unreliable as well, so he needs to work with an Apple techie to verify that when a code is sent, it actually gets to his phone.

 

[ferrarr]

@TGITC, You should also be able to set your winOS PC up as a trusted device.