Newgrounds 2FA: how to set up an authenticator app

Your Newgrounds account is what you use to post movies, games, art and music, vote, review and join the forums. You may already use two-factor authentication (2FA) without having set it up. Since January 2024, Newgrounds emails a sign-in code when you log in from a new device, unless you've set up an authenticator app (Newgrounds).

Newgrounds still recommends an authenticator app, so that someone who gets into your email can't get into Newgrounds too. This guide uses Authenticator App - Novaz on iPhone, but any authenticator app works the same way.

How we checked this guide: the Newgrounds details come from Newgrounds' own pages, linked below: a January 2024 news post and forum replies by Tom Fulp, Newgrounds' founder, whose posts carry the Staff badge, and the Newgrounds sign-in page. Newgrounds has no help article on 2FA that we could find. newgrounds.com turned away our automated reader with a browser check, so on October 20, 2026 we read archived copies on web.archive.org, saved between April 2024 and October 2026. We haven't tested the steps on a Newgrounds account, so a label may differ. The Novaz steps are checked against the app, version 1.0.5.

Email code or authenticator app

You get one kind of sign-in code or the other:

• Email code (the default). Asked whether it could be turned off, Tom Fulp replied that you'll need a code each time you log in from a different IP address than last time (Newgrounds staff reply). His announcement also asks you to make sure your email address is correct, or you may get locked out (Newgrounds).
• Authenticator app. Once it's set up, the sign-in page asks for the code from your app instead of emailing one (Newgrounds).

Turn on 2FA with an authenticator app

These steps come from the January 2024 announcement and a staff reply a few days later, the newest official description we found (Newgrounds, Newgrounds staff reply):

1. Sign in on newgrounds.com and open your account page at newgrounds.com/account.
2. Select Login Options and 2-Factor Authentication.
3. Newgrounds shows a QR code (Tom Fulp calls it a barcode). In Novaz, tap +, then Scan QR code, and point the camera at it. If the code is on the iPhone you're holding, take a screenshot, tap +, then Choose a photo. See scanning a QR code on the same iPhone.
4. Type the code from Novaz on the page and submit it.
5. Newgrounds then shows a page of backup codes. Save them before you leave it.

The posts don't name the buttons, or say whether Newgrounds shows a text key you could type instead. If it does, Novaz takes it under + > Enter key manually as the Setup key (see What is a 2FA setup key?), but scanning is safer, because the QR code carries the code settings.

Newgrounds' sign-in screen has been redesigned since: the 2025 version had no recovery-code field, the current one does (Newgrounds, archived 2025, Newgrounds). So the account page link may now have a different name.

Keep your backup codes

The staff reply calls them backup codes. The current sign-in page calls them recovery codes: if you can't get to your authenticator, it lets you enter a Recovery Code instead (Newgrounds). Newgrounds doesn't say how many codes you get, whether each works only once, or how to make new ones.

Without a Novaz backup (iCloud backup or a backup file), its keys exist only on your iPhone, so these codes are your way back in if the phone is lost. Store them away from the phone. More in 2FA backup codes.

Signing in with the app

Enter your username or email and password, then select Sign In With Newgrounds. When Newgrounds asks for a code, type the current one from Novaz in Authentication Code and select Verify. On your own computer, ticking Remember Me keeps you signed in, so you're asked less often. The page advises against it on shared or public computers (Newgrounds).

Before the redesign, the code box took six digits (Newgrounds, archived 2025), like the codes Novaz shows.

If Newgrounds rejects your code

Newgrounds doesn't cover rejected codes. The usual cause is the iPhone's clock: open Settings > General > Date & Time and turn on Set Automatically. Novaz also warns you when the clock is 15 seconds or more off. Other causes are in Authenticator code not working?

Changing phones

Newgrounds doesn't document how to switch the authenticator to a new phone or turn it off. With Novaz's iCloud backup or a backup file, you can restore your accounts on the new iPhone and keep the same codes. Otherwise, keep the old phone and your recovery codes until the new phone works, and ask Support (below) if the settings page offers no way to switch. See How to transfer your authenticator app to a new iPhone.

If you lose your authenticator

Enter one of your recovery codes in the Recovery Code field on the sign-in page (Newgrounds).

Without a recovery code, Newgrounds publishes no recovery process. Its 2FA announcement told people having trouble with the new sign-in codes to email Newgrounds Support at support@newgrounds.com, with their username in the email (Newgrounds). It doesn't say what proof Support asks for or how long it takes. More in Lost the phone with your authenticator app?

Official Newgrounds help

• Email 2FA and Pixel Day! (news post by Tom Fulp, Newgrounds staff, January 3, 2024)
• Email 2FA and Pixel Day!, page 2 (staff replies by Tom Fulp, January 5 and 7, 2024)
• Sign In