Of course, this is not a practical use case but that’s also not the purpose of this tutorial. You encrypt the file and then decrypt it on the same system. You are not sending the files to other system. I presume that you have just one system and you want to see how GPG works. Now that you are a bit familiar with the concept, let’s see how you can use GPG for encrypting a file and then use it to decrypt.
But it’s better to not go in to those details right now. Since your Linux system has the public file, it understands that the package is actually coming from the trusted developer.Ī number of encrypted services use some sort of GPG implementation underneath without you realizing it.
The developer signs the packages (generates a signature) with his/her private key. You add the public key of the developer into your system’s trusted keys. One of the most common example of using GPG is in Linux package manager, specially the external repositories. You are already using GPG without realizing And if a file was encrypted with a public key, it can only be decrypted with the corresponding private key. In other words, if a file was encrypted with a private key, it can only be decrypted with the corresponding public key. Thus allowing others to publicly post files without worry of people besides you being able to read them. This also works in the opposite direction! Other people can encrypt files using your public key, and the only way it’ll be able to be decrypted is with your private key. As the only way they’ll be able to decrypt the file is with your public key, which would only work if the file was encrypted using your private key in the first place. It allows you to encrypt files locally and then allow others to be ensured that the files they received were actually sent from you. This is where GPG’s main approach for encryption comes into play. The public key on the other hand is meant to be given to others, or anyone you want to be able to decrypt your files. The private key is meant to be stored in a fashion stated directly in its name – privately, and not given out to anyone. The new, encrypted file can then only be decrypted with the paired public key. When you encrypt a file with GPG, it uses the private key. These two keys are tied to each other, and are both needed to use all of GPG’s functionality, notably encrypting and decrypting files. Do not forget that we still have to save the file with the "Save All" option that appears at the end, if the file already exists it will ask us for confirmation to overwrite it.GPG keys work by using two files, a private key and a public key. If everything went well, the progress bar will appear at 100% and a blue box with the legend "Decryption succeeded" and with details of the name of the encrypted file and the name of the decrypted output file. In some cases it will not ask us for a password, although if it is encrypted with a password, this is because Kleopatra has a cache system so that we do not have to be writing passwords or keys so often, for example, if we encrypt a file and try decrypting immediately it will not ask us for it, but if we wait a few minutes or hours it will ask for it again.
#Gpg mail decrypt password#
If we have never opened the file, it will ask us for the password to decrypt it.
#Gpg mail decrypt windows#
To decrypt in the main interface we click on "Decrypt/Verify." and select the file, or in Windows Explorer we right-click on the file and select the option "Decrypt and verify". It only remains to click on “Finish” to close the window. At the end, an application called Kleopatra will open, which will help us when it comes to encrypting and decrypting files through a graphical interface. We run the installer, we practically click Next and OK in all the windows that appear.
#Gpg mail decrypt download#
In a few seconds, the download automatically begins. *", The asterisks are wildcards, it is usually the available version, then it will ask us for a donation to download, if we do not want to donate we simply select the amount $0 and click Download. In the page that was opened, we can click on the green button that says "Gpg4win *. After a few seconds, the download will begin.įrom the official page, to avoid mistrust:įirst we have to download it, for this we go to the official download page, and look for the GnuPG binary releases section. We enter the download page and if we only want to download it without donating, we click on the $0 option under the PayPal logo and click on the blue Download button.