Everyone has a fear of your account getting hacked by some bad hackers. Hackers can hack the account and get confidential or important information. To protect us from these hackers, Google has a feature to protect your accounts. It is the “2-Step verification”.  So What does 2-step verification do? When you enable 2-Step Verification, you add an extra layer of security to your account. Now with 2-Step Verification, if a bad guy hacks through your password layer, he’ll still need your phone or Security Key to get into your account. So let’s see how to set up Google’s 2-Step verification.

Steps to Setup Google’s 2-Step Verification

1. First, you need to open the link given on a computer. Link
2. Sign In with the Google Account for which you want to enable the 2-Step Verification.
3. Now on this screen Click on “Get Started”.

   

   Signing in with 2-step Verification

4. The next step is to set up your phone. Enter your Mobile number. Google will be sending a code to you. You can select the mode by which you would wish to get the code, i.e. by Call or Text Message.

   Set up your phone

5. In the next step, you need to verify your phone. Enter the code you received via Text or Call and click “Verify”.

   

   Verify your phone

6. In the next step, it will ask you if you are trusting the computer from which you are logging in. By trusting the computer, if you come into a situation where you have lost your phone, then you might be able to access your account from this computer without needing a code.

   

   Trust this computer

7. The next step is your confirmation for activating the 2-Step Verification. Just click on Confirm. 

   Turn On the 2-step verification

8. As soon as you confirm, on the next screen, you will get a pop-up saying to reconnect the devices. You can do this part later on also.

   

   Reconnect your Apps and devices

9. That’s it. Now you have Enabled Google’s Two-Step Verification for your account. You will see the following screen after enabling it.
10. Now instead of getting the code via SMS, you can use the Google Authenticator App for this purpose. It generates the  2-step verification codes on your phone. Even if you don’t have a signal on your phone it will still generate the code. You can download it from here. For Android, For iPhone.
11. To switch to the app you will see a highlighted box in blue color. There click on “Switch to App”. 

    

    Switch to app

12. You will see the following screen screen.

    

    Set up Google Authenticator

13. Now open the Google Authenticator app and select “Begin Setup”. Now Manually add the account by Scanning the barcode or Entering the Provided key in the above step.

14. After completing the above step, Google Authenticator app will show you a code. Just enter the code in the Screen shown in step 12.

    

    Get the code

15. That’s all.

Now you have Enabled the 2-Step verification. Now your account is safe. Now whenever you log in, after entering the login Id and Password it will ask for the code. Just type the code displayed on the Google Authenticator app.

How to Turn Off Google’s 2-Step Verification

At some point in time, you will wish t turn off the 2-Step verification. To turn it off simply follow the following screen.

1.  Firstly log in to the 2-step Verification. You can log in from here.
2. On the next screen on the Left side, you will see a small box like this.

   Turn Off the 2-step Verification

3. Just click on Turn Off.
4. You will see the following screen. Just click on turn off.

   

   Turn On 2-step verification 2

5. That’s it. Now your 2-Step Verification is turned off.