Authenticator app is not letting me us my personal account as admin

Dear @Anthony Ockerse,

I understand how frustrating it is to be locked out of your personal account, especially after carefully trying to reset your credentials and having a paid subscription active. Since your Authenticator app was originally configured by a previous employer, the "Admin" restriction you’re seeing is likely a remnant of their organization’s security policy still affecting the app or your device's registration.

Because you have already attempted to reset the emails and accounts but are still hitting a wall, here is the most direct path to regain control:

If this is a work or school account user:

You will need to contact your IT administrator or help desk. They are the only ones with permission to reset your multi-factor authentication settings. They can do this in the Microsoft Entra admin center by selecting your account and choosing "Require re-register multifactor authentication". Once they do this, you can set up the Authenticator app on your new phone from scratch.

If you are the only administrator and are completely locked out: Since no one else in your organization can reset MFA for you, you will need to contact Microsoft Support directly. Please call the Microsoft Support phone number for your region. You can find it here: Customer service phone numbers - Microsoft Support. When you call, explain that you are a global administrator locked out of your tenant and ask to be connected to the Data Protection team, as they handle these specific recovery scenarios.

If this is a personal Microsoft account (e.g., outlook.com, hotmail.com): You can attempt account recovery by visiting Recover your account. Select "I don't have my Authenticator app" and follow the prompts to verify your identity using other methods like SMS or email. If you don't have access to those, the recovery form is your best option.

I hope this information helps you resolve the issue. If you need further clarification, please let me know.

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Because the previous employer-managed work account and its Authenticator setup are no longer valid, the old work identity cannot be used to manage or recover a personal Microsoft account or its MFA settings.

For a work or school account, only the organization’s IT admin can reset MFA or remove old Authenticator registrations. If that account and tenant are gone or no longer accessible, the organization (not the end user) must work with Microsoft support to recover or deprovision it.

For a personal Microsoft account (Outlook.com, etc.), when access is lost due to Authenticator and no valid sign-in method remains, recovery must go through Microsoft’s account recovery and security flows. End users cannot “make themselves admin” over a locked personal account outside those flows.

If the locked account is actually a business/tenant admin account and there is no other admin:

• Microsoft’s Data Protection team must verify identity and reset the admin’s authentication methods. This is done by opening a support case via the global customer service phone numbers and clearly stating that the only global administrator is locked out due to Authenticator/MFA.
• If direct contact fails, a temporary new tenant can be created on a trial Microsoft 365 subscription, then a support ticket raised from that tenant asking the Data Protection team to help recover the original tenant admin, as described in the referenced Q&A threads.

Once MFA is reset by an admin (or Data Protection), the next sign-in will prompt to re-register Microsoft Authenticator and any passkeys or other methods as needed.

References:

• Work or school account help
• Microsoft Authenticator FAQs
• Common problems with two-step verification for a work or school account
• Authenticator Did Not Complete Login
• Troubleshoot signing in with a passkey
• I have a Micrsoft business account and I am the admin and the only user registered under this account. I can't log in because i have replaced my phone and the authenticator doesn't work. - Microsoft Q&A
• I need to reset my mfa methods - Microsoft Q&A
• Reset Personal Azure MFA - Microsoft Q&A
• Microsoft authenticator sending me into a spiral - Microsoft Q&A
• Requesting a Tenant Admin MFA Reset - Microsoft Q&A