MultiMFA vs Manual 2FA Sharing

Many teams share 2FA codes by forwarding the SMS to a colleague, pasting the code in Slack, or sending a screenshot over email. It’s quick and it works—until someone’s unavailable, someone leaves, or you need to show who had access to what. Relying on manual sharing means codes live in chat logs, inboxes, and on personal devices, with no real control over who sees them or when access should end.

This page compares manual 2FA sharing with a dedicated solution like MultiMFA. We describe what manual sharing typically looks like, the risks of forwarding OTPs, and when it might still be acceptable—then how to share 2FA securely at scale. The goal is to help you decide whether your current approach is enough or whether a centralized, controlled way to share OTP securely with your team makes sense.

What Manual 2FA Sharing Looks Like

When teams don’t use a dedicated shared 2FA tool, they usually do one or more of the following:

• Texting codes — The person whose phone received the SMS forwards it to someone else by text or messaging app.
• Email forwarding — Codes (or screenshots) are sent by email so others can sign in.
• Slack or team chat screenshots — Someone pastes the code or uploads a screenshot so the team can use it.
• One person as gatekeeper — A single team member receives every 2FA code and is asked to read it out or forward it whenever someone needs to sign in.
• Shared Google (or similar) account logins — Everyone uses one account’s number for 2FA and shares the login to see incoming codes.

These approaches are common when teams first need to share 2FA code with team members. They’re simple to start but don’t scale well and create the risks described in the next section. For a comparison with another common workaround, see MultiMFA vs Google Voice.

Risks of Manual OTP Sharing

Relying on forwarding or screenshots to share OTP securely is difficult, because those channels aren’t designed for one-time codes. Here are the main risks:

• No access control — Anyone who can see the channel or message can use the code; you can’t limit it to specific people.
• No visibility into who accessed codes — There’s no record of who received or used a code, which complicates audits and incident response.
• Offboarding risk — When someone leaves, you can’t “turn off” their access to codes; you may have to change passwords or 2FA numbers.
• Account lockout dependency — If the person who receives codes is unavailable, the team can’t sign in.
• Compliance concerns — Many policies expect controlled, auditable access; manual sharing rarely provides that.
• Personal device dependency — Using one person’s phone ties business access to that device and that person.

Side-by-Side Comparison

Why Manual Sharing Breaks at Scale

What works for two people—one receives the code, one asks for it—starts to fail as the team grows. With three or four people, the “gatekeeper” gets more requests and becomes a bottleneck. With five or more, or with contractors and agencies who need temporary access, manual sharing becomes impractical: you don’t want to paste codes in a big channel, and you can’t easily revoke one person without changing the whole setup.

Agencies managing client accounts, teams with remote members, and families sharing several accounts all run into the same issue: there’s no clean way to share 2FA code with team members on demand without exposing codes in chat or email, and no way to scale access up or down. A dedicated shared 2FA solution is built for that. For team-focused use cases, see our shared 2FA for teams page.

When Manual Sharing Might Be Acceptable

It’s fair to say that manual sharing can be acceptable in narrow cases. For temporary, very low-risk situations—for example, two trusted people sharing access to a single non-sensitive account for a short time—forwarding a code occasionally may be a calculated risk some are willing to take. There’s no central number or audit trail, but the impact of a breach is low.

Where manual sharing is a poor fit is when multiple people need regular access, when you need to prove or limit who had access, or when accounts are important (work, financial, or client-related). In those cases, a way to share 2FA securely with controlled recipients—like MultiMFA—is the better choice.

How MultiMFA Fixes the Problem

MultiMFA gives you a shared SMS verification number that receives 2FA and OTP codes, then delivers them only to people you’ve added. You don’t forward codes manually—the system sends them to each approved recipient (by SMS or email). That means controlled recipient access: you decide who gets codes, and you can remove someone so they stop receiving them immediately, without changing account passwords or reclaiming a shared login.

You get centralized visibility in the dashboard: you can see when codes were received and delivered, which supports both day-to-day use and audit needs. Onboarding and offboarding are simplified—add new team members or family when they need access, remove them when they don’t. There’s no dependency on one person’s phone or on pasting codes into Slack. For alternatives to manual sharing, see how MultiMFA compares to Google Voice and our Shared 2FA for teams guide. For more on how the number and delivery work, see our shared SMS verification number page and our homepage.

Frequently Asked Questions