I have the Public Key of a person i want to send an encrypted PGP email message to in plain text. What do i do with it?

Hi guys - i have the Public Key of a person i want to send an encrypted PGP email message to. However it is in plain text. I am able to copy it to my clipboard and paste it. Can someone please provide instructions on how to use this plain text Public Key when sending a message to this person. And also can i add this key to this person’s contact so i dont have to copy and paste each time.

Hello Matthew,

The easiest way to understand PGP encryption is to watch the instruction video which is posted on the homepage of our website: https://www.emclient.com
If you already have the recipient’s Public key, you can import it in Menu > Tools > Settings > Signing and Encryption > Certificates and keys > Other’s certificates. Then you can send encrypted messages to your contact.

Russel

The issue i have is that i just have the other persons public key in plain text but not in a file that you can select and then import. I wanted to know how to send a pgp message if all i have is the plain text of the public key. Its not obvious and its not in the video. Thanks again

I cannot give any guarantees, but there’s no harm in trying. :slight_smile:

Copy the key including -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- and -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----. Open a plain text editor (Notepad, Notepad++ etc., but not Word) and paste it there. Save with .asc extension. Import into the email client. Try to send mail. :slight_smile:

Yes, that has always worked in the past.

If you don’t have the public key, and you want to send someone an encrypted message, you can copy the text from a public key server and do what you just described.