If it can find the key it will be added to your key chain.Īs with the encrypted message, it is worth looking at the source code of the email so that you are aware of what signed emails look like in their “raw” format.Īt first glance the source code looks similar to the encrypted message code. Keys have an ID number and Mail may try to download the relevant key from the key servers so that it can identify the sender. If you receive signed emails from people whose public key you do not have, this may read “unknown key”. If you click on the seal icon, a window like the one below appears to give you more information about the key used to sign the message. This tells you that the message was signed with the key for the email address mentioned. Here you will notice that under the messages headers and just above the content you see the line: When you receive your signed email, open it and you should see a window similar to the one below. defaults write ~/Library/Preferences/ SignNewEmailsByDefault -bool NO Reading your first signed message You can copy and paste the following command directly in to Terminal. To launch the Terminal application go to Applications > Utilities and click on Terminal. If you don’t want the signed option to be enabled for each new message by default, there is a way to turn this off by entering a command in the Terminal application. You can now click Send and your message will be sent to you. You can always send signed messages whether you have the public key of your recipients or not. This will tell Mail to sign the outgoing message. This time, click the seal icon above and to the right of the body of your message so that is shows as selected (as below). Sending your first signed messageĬompose another message addressed to yourself similar to the one below. Once they are decoded at the recipient end they will appear just as in an unencrypted message. Note: Any attachments to your email (such as photographs or documents) will also be encoded with no further action on your part. However, the entire body of your message was encrypted and you will not see the text “This is my first encrypted message using Apple Mail, GPGMail and OpenPGP.” anywhere. Do not put anything confidential in the subject of your emails. This is necessary or it would not be possible to deliver your message (certainly in the case of recipient anyway). You will notice that sender, recipient and the subject line are not encrypted. It is worth having a close look at this window to familiarise yourself with what is encrypted and what isn’t. We have excluded the message headers in the screen-shot above just to make the image smaller. To see the message as it was sent to the email servers, and also how it is stored on your machine:Ī window will open to show you the message as it is stored on your computer. Because the encryption is so well integrated with your email client, you never usually get to see the encrypted message. This is a good question, and something you should check to satisfy yourself that it really was. This shows that the email was encrypted when sent to you. They main thing to look for here is the line just above the message that says: Your message will look very much like it did when you created it. You can always save your passphrase in the OS X keychain if you are confident your machine is secure and nobody could send messages on your behalf. You might be asked to enter your passphrase when decrypting messages. You should find your encrypted message arrives quite quickly (it hasn’t had to go far!).Ĭlick on it as you would any other message and you should see your message as below. The icon to the right of the lock is for signing messages, we will come to this later. At the same time the OpenPGP icon at the top right of the window will turn green. This indicates that the message will be encrypted. Click the lock to close it as shown in the image below. If Mail detects that it has a public key for the address you are sending to, then the lock icon just above the text of your message will appear black and will be selectable. Open Mail and begin a new message addressed to yourself. To test that everything is working as it should be, you can send an encrypted message to yourself. This is to ensure you are the authorised user of the key. Note: At some points in this process you could be asked for the passphrase you used to create your key. Creating a Key Pair with GPGTools on OS X Sending your first encrypted message
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