Goodbye Raivo app

I’ve been using the iOS app Raivo OTP for two-factor authentication ever since I saw Derek Sivers recommend it. (He has since updated his recommendation to 2FA Authenticator.)

Then one day a few weeks ago I opened the app to authenticate somewhere and was surprised to see all my keys were gone. At first I didn’t understand what happened and why everything was missing until a subscription modal interrupted me. It asked me to subscribe in order to restore my keys. Is this app trying to blackmail me all of a sudden?

I’d never seen this modal before so I figured something must’ve happened in a recent update. I quickly checked the release notes. It said to export your keys before updating which was wild. Of course. I never check release notes before updating an app because it happens automatically so whatever attempt at communication this was from the developer failed miserably.

I went looking to see if other people had a similar experience or found any workarounds. Turns out this whole thing was a mess mainly due to Raivo being acquired. Again, I don’t keep up with the news surrounding this app so I had no idea.

Fortunately I had backed up my keys using iCloud which allowed me to restore them. From there I chose a new 2FA app and updated all my keys so that I could safely uninstall Raivo. From what I’ve seen other users weren’t so lucky and have had to spend a lot of time trying to regain access to many sites just because of how poorly this app update was managed and communicated. Lesson learned.