Though now Google Authenticator supports transfers, there is less of a need.
But I still enjoy using andOTP.
(I am, somewhat shamedly, not yet a user of TOTP 2FA, although I will have to become so soon because of various platfrom and organizational requirements, and am trying to figure it out, and finding it challenging).
What are the options/ways that other TOTP apps handle this better, what are my choices here?
The way to handle this correctly is to have backup options. This can be a second device or a printed sheet of backup codes. I’d wager that few people actually do this, though.
E.g., when I create an account at a site that uses TOTP I scan the QR code on both my phone and my tablet.
(Actually, I scan it twice on each device, using two different TOTP apps. That way I'm covered if one of the apps stops being supported).
If you don't have all your devices available at the same time, or you want to allow for the possibility of adding a new device later, you can simply save the QR code. When the site gives you the QR code, take a screenshot and save that in some secure fashion. I save it as an encrypted PNG file.
To add a TOTP device later view the screenshot and scan the QR code.
Most sites that give you a TOTP QR code have an option to get the code in text. As an alternative to (or in addition to) saving a screenshot of the QR code you can ask for the text code and save that. Securing a text file might be more convenient for some people than securing an image file, although using the text code to set up a new phone or tablet likely won't be as convenient as using a QR code.
I guess you need to keep these QR codes/texts as carefully/securely as you would any password....
This is all a lot of work, trying to figure out how to adjust to this world of 2FA.
You need the password every time you login to a site, so you need to find a way to securely store passwords that also allows easy frequent access to the password.
You only need the QR code when setting up a TOTP application on one of your devices which generally will only be once per device and then once whenever you replace a device. You don't need frequent easy access and so can pick a storage method that is optimized toward ease of initial storage.
For example if I've just signed up for site example.com and I've saved a screenshot of the QR code in example.png, I'd do this:
$ gpg -ear tzs@mydomain example.png
$ mv example.png.asc ~/OneDrive/totp-recovery
$ rm example.png
A more user friendly cloud solution might be Authy that others have recommended.
They're probably hiding the TOTP option because the backup story for Google Authenticator is really poor. If you lose your device, you lose access to all of the accounts you had set up 2FA for with Google Authenticator. Of course, there are other TOTP apps that are better in this regard, but Google is unlikely to promote those because then they'd lose some control over the authentication flow.