How to receive 2-factor sms key when iphone is lost?

Travel-er wrote:

It would be nice if someone from apple would answer this question about their two-factor authentication.🙂

If you expect that to happen, you would need to contact Apple and ask them. Apple does not participate here. This is a user to user forum.

From iCloud: Frequently asked questions about iCloud Keychain

"Note: If you don't have access to the phone number provided when you first set up iCloud Keychain, contact Apple Support to verify your identity to complete setup on your new device."

My mistake. Here you go:

Apple ID: Frequently asked questions about two-step verification for Apple ID

Apple ID: Can't sign in with two-step verification

To summarize the above, you need at least two of the following:

• your Apple ID password
• a trusted device (defined as one capable of using Find My iPhone or SMS)
• your 14 digit recovery key

If you lose two of the above, there is no recovery:

"If you lose access to two of these three items at the same time, you could be locked out of your Apple ID account permanently.

In addition, with two-step verification turned on, only you can reset your password, manage your trusted devices, or create a new recovery key.

Apple Support can help you with other aspects of your service, but they will not be able to update or recover these three things on your behalf."

Travel-er wrote:

... it then asked for my iphones phone number for sms text messeges "in case I lost my iPhone". Apple recommends having at least one sms capable phone as a trusted device, so, the iPhone can do the verification either way...find my iphone or sms text. (but if I loose it I can't do either, right?)

That's a good point. The system is far from perfect.

You can register multiple cellphones as trusted devices to receive the 2-factor access code. For example, you could register your iPhone (which can receive SMS messages) and another SMS-capable phone (belonging to wife, husband, trusted friend, parent, etc). Should you lose your iPhone, you'll have a fallback, though with some inconvenience as you'd need to track down the person with the other phone in order to log in to your account. Your security won't be compromised as long as that trusted person doesn't know your AppleID password.

If you have multiple phones registered as trusted devices, the AppleID website will ask you which one should receive the SMS code when you attempt to log in to your AppleID account (after having entered the correct password).