Let others encrypt emails and files to you easily

Someone wants to mail you in confidence. Their software can encrypt that email right away, if you make sure your public OpenPGP key is placed on your webpage properly, by using a Web Key Directory.

Read more about how this works, the end-to-end cryptography, open standards, advanced email clients, and Free Software products like GnuPG and Gpg4win in this wiki ...

Notable Events

• 2023-08-04 The community forum has been modernized.
• 2023-07-14 Handle PDF signatures with the first release of Okular (GnuPG edition) coming with Gpg4win 4.2.
• 2022-12-20 GnuPG 2.4.0 marks 25 years of existence.
• 2021-12-21 Gpg4win 4 released, a major update. It includes GnuPG 2.3 for the first time and this means ECC is the default for new key-pairs.
• 2021-04-08: GnuPG 2.3.0 released, a major release with new crypto algorithm defaults and faster pubkey storage.
• 2020-01-07: GnuPG.com starts offering paid support for Gpg4win that is approved for EU RESTRICTED communication. (GnuPG.com is a brand of g10code the main developer of GnuPG and Gpg4win.)

(NotableEventsHistory)

What are GnuPG and Gpg4win?

GnuPG is a Free Software for encrypting and signing emails and files. It runs on GNU/Linux, Windows, MacOS and other operating systems.

Gpg4win is a software bundle for Windows that includes GnuPG and additional software:

• An add-in for Outlook to handle crypto emails.
• An add-in for Explorer to handle files.
• A PDF application to create and verify signatures (experimental).
• Kleopatra, a graphical interface to manage keys (and offer some expert functions).

Get help

Documentation

Documentations can help you to accomplish your tasks or find a solution for your problems.

Troubleshooting

Sometimes you may face different problems. The Trouble Shooting section shows possible solutions to solve them (mainly for Gpg4win on Windows).

Your help in this wiki is highly appreciated!

This wiki is an effort for the communities of GnuPG, OpenPGP, the Free Software products around them and the interested public. You are invited to join us! If you find misspellings or outdated information feel free to fix them. For more ideas to contribute you can visit this page.

If you want to read more about the background of this wiki this is the right place.

GnuPG for Users

• Wie funktioniert E-Mail-Verschlüsselung mit PGP? Video, 3:35min (German video about how email encryption with OpenPGP works)
• Hints for EMailClients/Thunderbird users.
• LargeKeys: How many bits are enough?
• WebOfTrust: Understanding the web of trust
• GnomeKeyring: What to do when Gnome Keyring Hijacks your GPG Agent
• PlatformNotes - what to be aware of when using or administrating GnuPG on different platforms.
• X.509 hints (needed for S/MIME and trusted root certs)
• SmartCard hints
• Wishlist Where to submit feature requests
• Applications using GnuPG
• Tools that may help running or administrating GnuPG or Gpg4win
• EMailClients/Screenshots
• LDAPKeyserver: How to configure OpenLDAP as a keyserver.
• Hints for use with NFS
• How to use local secrets on a remote machine

GnuPG for Developers

• Web Key Directory and Service, which makes exchanging crypto mails much easier.
• Suggestions for common UX practices
• How to use GnuPG from your application (GnuPG's API)
• Implemented OpenPGP specification.
• BuildingFromGIT
• Building GnuPG 2.1: GnuPG 2.1 is the latest GnuPG version but as with all 2.x versions it has several dependencies, which make building it a bit more difficult. Here are some notes.
  • Building for Unix
  • Building for Windows
  • Building for Android
• API checker (last updated 2020?) ABI laboratory checks ABI/API changes for some libraries like gpgme, libgpg-error, libgcrypt.

Note that the tools can't necessary decide whether something is an ABI or API change. The output should be used as a hint to look for whether there might be a problem. We are not aware of any broken API or ABI contracts for the listed libraries.

• SignatureHandling
• DevelopingKleopatra
• NTBTLS (Not too bad TLS) client library
• OtherResearch

History

• Gpg4KDE, a deprecated label for the combination of Kleo, GnuPG, KMail on GNU/Linux systems
• WinPT, a deprecated graphical taskbar front-end for GnuPG on Windows
• GPGoe, a deprecated GPG plug-in for Outlook Express

Other OpenPGP implementations/initiatives

• OtherFreeSoftwareOpenPGP
• OtherFreeSoftwareInitiatives
• NonFreeSoftwareOpenPGP

Planning

• Tasks
• OpenPGPEmailSummits
• OpenPGP.conf, last conf was 8+9th of Sept, 2016.