Plan requirement
| Subscription | Any plan |
The five-digit code you type on a desk phone is derived from your password, so changing one changes both.
Where it comes from
A phone keypad has no letters, so signing in on hardware uses a numeric version of your password. Each letter becomes the number on the key it shares, the way text messages worked before phones had keyboards, and any special character becomes a star.
| a b c | 2 |
| d e f | 3 |
| g h i | 4 |
| j k l | 5 |
| m n o | 6 |
| p q r s | 7 |
| t u v | 8 |
| w x y z | 9 |
| anything else | * |
It is not a second password you can set. It is your existing one, expressed in digits.
What that means in practice
- Change your password and the code changes with it. The old one stops working on your phone the moment the new password takes effect.
- You cannot change one without the other. There is no separate device code to reset.
- Anyone who knows the code has narrowed down your password considerably, so treat it the same way.
Why a sign-in suddenly fails
Almost always a password change nobody connected to the phone. Somebody updates their password on Monday, their desk phone stops accepting them on Tuesday, and the two events do not feel related.
If a colleague reports being locked out of their handset, ask when they last changed their password.
Work it out
Take the first five characters of your password and, for each one, press the key that carries it. Five is all the phone asks for, however long your password is, which is why the code feels short. Two letters on the same key give the same digit, so the code is not reversible into the password either.
Do not write it on the phone
A sticker on the handset with the code on it is a sticker with most of your password on it. If people cannot remember it, that is an argument for a shorter memorable password, not for a note.
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