Ente Auth

Is Ente Auth safe?

Yes. Ente Auth keeps your two-step codes encrypted on your device and, if you sync, sends Ente only encrypted copies. Unlike most authenticators, its claims have been checked from outside: Cure53 and Symbolic Software audited Ente's cryptography and apps in 2023, and Cure53 audited its servers in 2025. Leaving is easy, with an encrypted export in a documented format. We score it 87/100, level with Proton Authenticator, a point behind Bitwarden (88) and ahead of 2FAS (83). The small catches are an email address if you want sync and no paid bug bounty.

How Ente protects your codes

Ente built Auth on the same end-to-end encryptedEnd-to-end encryptionEncryption in which only the sender and the recipient can read a message. The company running the service cannot see its content.More in the glossary storage it runs for Ente Photos, and released it in December 2022 as a free app. Its help pages say codes are encrypted on your device before they sync, Ente's servers store only encrypted copies of your codes and of your master key, and your password unlocks that master key on the device. If you forget the password, the 24-word recovery key is the only way back; Ente cannot reset it for you.

All the cryptography runs through libsodium, a widely used library that Ente credits for making mistakes hard. The apps and the server are open source under the AGPL-3.0 licence, and the server is published as a Docker image, so anyone can read the code or run their own copy.

What the audits found

In March 2023 Ente announced that Cure53, a German security firm, working with the French cryptography consultancy Symbolic Software, had audited its architecture and source code. Ente says the auditors found the architecture sound and the implementation "cryptographically accurate" across all its clients. The one high-severity finding was that the web app let people set weak passwords, which can be brute-forced. Ente fixed it and the auditors checked the fix. Two medium issues, about limiting the damage from a stolen key, were left for later hardening.

In November 2025 a team of five Cure53 researchers spent two weeks on Ente's server code and infrastructure, in an audit paid for by CERN, which uses Ente. The audit covered the shared platform behind Photos, Auth and Locker. Cure53 found 15 security issues and no data-integrity problems; Ente fixed 12 of them during the audit.

The one serious flaw we found in Ente's public advisories came later. In July 2026 Ente disclosed that an accepted emergency contact could skip the notice period an account owner sets before that contact can recover the account. It only mattered if you had added an emergency contact whose account was later misused. Ente deployed a fix on 9 July 2026 and says its logs showed no sign of exploitation. We found no breach of Ente's systems.

Ente asks researchers to report flaws to [email protected] or through GitHub. Its policy offers no rewards, and we found no Ente program on HackerOne, Bugcrowd or Intigriti.

What data does Ente Auth collect?

If you use it offline, almost nothing. With an account, Apple's label lists your email address, a user ID and "other user content" linked to you for app functions, plus support messages; crash data is collected but not linked to you, and there is no tracking. Google Play marks the email as optional and declares no sharing. Ente's privacy policy, updated on 16 October 2026, says it does not collect analytics on how you use app features, does not sell personal data, and will tell users of a breach by email within 72 hours. The policy does not mention Auth by name, which makes it a little harder to read for this app.

Backups and leaving Ente Auth

This is the strongest part of the app. Under Settings, Data, Export, the Encrypted option protects your codes with a password you choose. Ente documents the format openly: Argon2id turns the password into a key and XChaCha20-Poly1305 encrypts the codes, so a file can be decrypted with Ente's command-line tool as well as in the app. Local backups can run daily, encrypted with a password of at least eight characters, and keep the five newest copies.

For people who skip sync, Ente says plainly that these files are the recovery path, and that phone transfers or system backups should not be trusted for offline codes.

How to use Ente Auth safely

1. If you sync, store your 24-word recovery key away from your phone and email. It cannot be changed later.
2. Put the code for your Ente account somewhere other than Ente Auth, or keep its recovery codes printed, so a lost phone does not lock you out of everything.
3. Turn on encrypted local backups, then test one by importing it on another device.
4. Use the app lock with a PIN or password if other people use your phone.
5. Never type a code into a page you reached from a text or email link.

How we scored it

Transparency and control (91) is the strongest factor, thanks to an optional account, a documented encrypted export and automatic local backups. Scams and harmful content (85) is the lowest, because like every code app it cannot stop you typing a code into a phishing page. Privacy and security (87 each) combine audited end-to-end encryptionEnd-to-end encryptionEncryption in which only the sender and the recipient can read a message. The company running the service cannot see its content.More in the glossary with an account that needs an email address and no paid bug bounty. Compared with Google Authenticator (74), the difference is mostly in what happens to your codes once they leave the phone.