Gifting an existing email | 2FA

[Martin-B]

For many years I have had 2 email addresses as part of my BT Broadband account - for myself and my wife.  When 2FA became available I activated it for My BT account (in autumn 2020).  However, it does not seem to be active for either email address when logging in to webmail, and for obvious security reasons I am keen to correct this.

When I go to Manage Email within My BT both email addresses are listed and active.  Neither is registered as a Favourite.  I understand that I should "gift" my wife's email address to her so that it exists as an affiliate account and she can manage it independently (and receive 2FA passcodes by SMS).  However, when I click on the Options link next to her (and my) email address the option to "Give this email address" is not there - only "Link to BT ID" or "Delete".

How should I proceed?  It looks as though part of the problem may be that my email address is seemingly not linked to my BT ID, even though it is one and the same thing!  Our email is working perfectly and I do not want to mess it up...so any advice would be gratefully received!

[licquorice]

Have you actually tried linking it to your BTID?

[Martin-B]

No - I was concerned that if I tried it might confuse matters...

[gg30340]

If you have set up 2FA it should be shown as being turned on when you go to your MyBT > Your Details.

It is a while since I set it up but if I recall correctly it will activate automatically on the email addresses that are listed as yours in your MyBT > Mail,Manage.

If you have been using 2FA, when you first had an activation you will probably have marked your device as a "Trusted" device and as such it will allow you to log onto the email accounts with out needing to verify.

To test if 2FA is working on your email accounts you should try logging onto them on a device that you have not trusted.

You can see which devices you have "trusted" when you are checking to see if it is turned on by clicking the link "Edit two step authentication settings"

If you "gift" your wife's email account to her she will have to set up her own BTID and thereafter she can activate 2FA on her account by going into MyBT > Your Details. If she does not do that her email account would not be covered by 2FA.

[Martin-B]

Thanks. I can confirm that 2FA shows as being turned on in My BT > Your Details. The only device I have "Trusted" is my desktop PC at home - but logging on from my "untrusted" iPhone does not require a verification passcode, so 2FA does not seem to be active for email...

[Martin-B · Accepted solution]

Update:

I have taken the advice of "liquorice" above and added my own email address to my BT ID.  This means that my email is now accessed using my BT ID password, and means that 2FA now applies to it (confirmed just now by testing from my "untrusted"  iPhone).  Furthermore, the Options dialog now includes "Give this email address".

I think this situation must have arisen because our 2 email addresses were set up with my BT Broadband account long before "My BT" (and therefore my BT ID) existed.  When I subsequently created a BT ID some years ago, the email addresses were not automatically linked to it - they apparently have to be "claimed" manually (as I have just done for mine).

It therefore looks as though I shall need to "claim" my wife's email address in the same way, and then give it to her so that she can link it to a BT ID of her own in a 2-step process...