How do I use login approvals without a smartphone?

Who needs to read this article?

• Users for whom login approvals are required by their school.
• Users who wish to use login approvals, even if not required to do so by their school.

If you are not required to use login approvals and do not wish to do so, you may continue to access Populi with your username and password. Feel free to skip this article.

In this article, you'll learn how to use login approvals without using an authenticator app on your smartphone. Instead of a smartphone app, you'll use a "desktop" version of an authenticator app.

Login approvals use something called TOTP, which stands for Time-based One-Time-use Passcodes. Most apps that generate TOTP are password managers that also let you create and store secure passwords. They're also not free for the most part. Here's a brief list of apps that generate TOTP codes that work with login approvals; this is just for information purposes, and we don't necessarily endorse any of these apps:

• 1Password is desktop password-manager that can also generate the one-time codes that work with Populi's login approvals. The cheapest plan—called "Individual"—is more than adequate to handle login approvals.
• Bitwarden does many of the same things as 1Password. There's a free version, but to generate TOTP, you'll need to use one of the paid personal plans.
• KeePassXC is a free, open-source password manager. Here is their documentation for setting up TOTP.

For instructions on how to use a smartphone with login approvals, see this article.

1. Make sure you've installed the desktop authenticator app on your computer.
2. Click your picture in the upper right of the screen (in the black bar) and select Settings. In the left sidebar, click Security.
3. In the a dialog asking you to download an authenticator app, click Next.
4. Populi will display a QR code on the screen. Under the QR code, click View Code.
5. Populi shows you a long alphanumeric code. Copy the code.
6. Open your authenticator app and use the add account function. When it requests the code from the website, paste the long code from Populi in that field.
7. Follow the prompts in your app to finish adding the account. Once added, it should begin generating passcodes—typically, a new one every 30 seconds.
8. In Populi, enter your Populi password and the most recent passcode from the authenticator app in their respective fields.
9. Click Next.
10. Populi will generate a recovery code for you. This code lets you log in to Populi one time in case you lose access to your smartphone (and can't use a code from the authenticator app). Copy the recovery code and store it in a safe place.
11. Click Done to go to Populi > Home.