The article "Degoogling TOTP Authenticator Codes" by Imran Nazar discusses how to move away from using Google Authenticator on Android phones for Time-based One Time Password (TOTP) codes, particularly enabling command-line generation of these codes using the tool oathtool. The author prefers working primarily in terminal environments on MacOS or Linux and wants a method to generate TOTPs without relying on Google’s Authenticator app. Google Authenticator codes are normally tied to the app and switching to a CLI tool typically requires logging into each service, disabling two-factor authentication (2FA), then re-enabling it manually to get new keys. However, Google provides a migration feature that exports all TOTP codes as a QR code that contains a special migration URL with encoded data. The process to migrate away from Google Authenticator involves four main steps: 1. Exporting a QR code containing all desired accounts from Google Authenticator’s "Transfer Codes" option. 2. Decoding the QR code into a migration URL off the device using a tool like qrtool. 3. Decoding the Base64-encoded protobuf data in the migration URL into individual services and their secret keys using a specialized Python script called otpauthmigrate, available at https://github.com/brookst/otpauthmigrate. 4. Using oathtool with the extracted secret keys to generate TOTP codes from the command line. The author provides example commands for installing qrtool (via Homebrew) and running otpauth_migrate.py to parse the encoded data. The extracted secrets can be stored in a local file (e.g., ~/.otpkeys) and accessed via a simple bash wrapper script to simplify OTP generation by service name. An example wrapper script reads the secret key for a given service from ~/.otpkeys, feeds it into oathtool, and displays a current OTP code with a timestamp. This eliminates the need to use the Authenticator app once fully migrated. The author notes a security consideration: storing secret keys as plaintext files is risky. Others have developed enhanced wrapper scripts using GPG encryption for secure key storage, referenced via a link to Vivek Gite’s work. Finally, the author expresses interest in replacing Google Maps usage with a privacy-conscious alternative that provides traffic data without involving Google’s servers. In summary, this article guides users on how to export Google Authenticator TOTP secrets, decode them using protobuf tools, and generate OTPs using CLI utilities, enabling a more private and terminal-centric two-factor authentication workflow.