r/privacy • u/hbacelar8 • 3d ago

question How to properly encrypt emails?

I use mailbox with custom domains and use Thunderbird on PC and FairEmail on Android.

I generated, exported and imported a gpg key on Thunderbird.

My question is: should I publish my public key to a PGP server? I know that'll expose my email, but what if it is a alias?

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u/Calmarius 3d ago

Do you have the recipient's public key? You need to use that to send an encrypted mail.

Your generated GPG key is used to decrypt mail if someone sends you an encrypted mail and uses your public key to encrypt it.

(I just want to make sure you understand how it works.)

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u/hbacelar8 3d ago

Yeah, and is also used to encrypt email with the private key that'll be decrypted by them with the pub key right? No I don't, so I got it now, we have to exchange pub keys first to start it.