How to encrypt an email with PGP — a 5-minute tutorial

Most "PGP for beginners" guides spend ten paragraphs on theory before any practical step. This one does the opposite. By the end you will have sent one encrypted message and decrypted one reply.

Everything happens in your browser. Nothing is sent to a server. No account is required.

What you need

• The recipient's PGP public key — a block of text starting with -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----.
• Your own key pair, if you want the recipient to write back. If you do not have one yet, generate it on the Generate Keys tool first.
• Any email client. Gmail, Outlook, Proton, it doesn't matter — you paste ciphertext into the body like any other text.

Encrypt the message

1. Open the Encrypt tool.
2. Paste the recipient's public key into the "Public Key" field.
3. Type your message into the plaintext field.
4. (Optional) Tick "Sign with my key" and paste your private key + passphrase to attach a signature.
5. Click "Encrypt". The output is a block of armored ciphertext — copy it.

Send it

Open your email client and paste the ciphertext into the body. Your subject line will be in plaintext, so do not put sensitive information there. Send.

Decrypt the reply

1. Copy the ciphertext from the reply email.
2. Open the Decrypt tool.
3. Paste your private key and enter the passphrase.
4. Paste the ciphertext.
5. Click "Decrypt". The plaintext appears.

Common mistakes

• Pasting the wrong key. Make sure the public key you encrypt to belongs to the person you are writing.
• Including an HTML signature. Some clients add a long footer that the recipient confuses with the ciphertext block. Plain text mode avoids this.
• Sharing your private key. Only paste it into trusted tools and never email it to anyone.
• Forgetting the subject is not encrypted. Treat it like a postcard.