Products · Pattern or everyday thing
TOTP
Raised as a usability problem by 14 people on Hacker News over 10 years (2017–2026), in 13 threads.
People raised many different problems with TOTP, but no single problem has yet been raised by 3 people in 3 different months and threads.
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 14 complaints
- Most TOTP implementations had terrible user experience for years, deterring adoption2026-10-23
- Finds TOTP authentication codes a pain to use2026-10-15
- Pasting a TOTP code into split input boxes often fails; backspace is unreliable2026-03-18
- TOTP codes are annoying to enter and use2025-07-30
- Users can't find built-in TOTP option; it's buried in settings and poorly documented2025-05-14
- Migrating each TOTP entry one by one took hours, with no export option2024-07-19
- Requires substantial user knowledge to use correctly2022-02-24
- Poor user experience when using TOTP codes to log in2022-02-24
- Must read a code from an app and type it before it expires, after username and password2021-08-05
- No good way to tell one TOTP authenticator from another, making multiple registrations awful2020-10-02
- TOTP has terrible UX when migrating, restoring or revoking2019-06-20
- Users can't tell which authenticator app to install, and deleting the app locks them out2019-06-07
- Can't tell which of many TOTP codes belongs to which site, since labels are missing or uneditable2018-10-29
- TOTP codes on a phone are a pain to recover after losing or resetting the phone2017-08-18