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GPG Keychain: passphrase

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Burkhard Kraas

09 May, 2017 06:20 AM

I upgraded to a new MacBook and have forgotten my passphrase. What can I do?

Expected
I hope to recover my passphrase.

macOS           10.12.4     16E195
GPG Suite       2017.1b3    1812    (d43863c)
GPGMail         2.7b3       1215    (d0b5fa0)
GPG Keychain    1.3.3b2     1271    (028a4a2)
GPGServices     1.11        916     (872e77d)
MacGPG2         2.0.30-1b2  887-    (4912d26)
GPGPreferences  2.0.2b3     927     (641418e)
Libmacgpg       0.7         782     (536bf51)
pinentry        0.9.7       4       (b75069d)

1. Support Staff 1 Posted by Steve on 09 May, 2017 10:20 AM

   

   Hi Burkhard,

   welcome to the GPGTools support platform. Sorry you are having problems using GPG Suite.

   This KB-article explains what to do if you forgot your password or lost access to your secret key.

   Let me know if that was helpful.

   All the best,
   steve

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2. 2 Posted by Burkhard Kraas on 20 May, 2017 10:52 AM

   

   Hi Steve,

   Sorry, but it took me a while to find time to look into it since I am travelling! It doesn’t work for me because to revoke the key it requires my pass-phrase.

   Please advise!

   Burkhard

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3. Support Staff 3 Posted by Steve on 21 May, 2017 09:08 AM

   

   Do you still have access to your old mac? If so, you may want to do a search for 'gnupg' in macOS keychain and see if that shows any results.

   Should you be unable to get back to your password and have no backup or idea what it could be and have access to the old mac, you could try to revoke your key on that old mac and create a new key on the new mac.

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4. 4 Posted by Burkhard Kraas on 21 May, 2017 09:53 AM

   

   Thank you Steve! I have access to my old mac. I will try it out when I am back home.

   Sent from my iPad

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5. 5 Posted by Burkhard Kraas on 23 May, 2017 11:26 PM

   

   Hi Steve,

   I found ‘gnupg' in my keychain access. What can I do with that? Revoke it and create a new?

   On May 21, 2017, at 2:53 AM, Burkhard Kraas <[email blocked]> wrote:

   Thank you Steve! I have access to my old mac. I will try it out when I am back home.

   Sent from my iPad

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6. 6 Posted by Burkhard Kraas on 23 May, 2017 11:39 PM

   

   Hi Steve, I found the passphrase and it works but it expires in July!

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7. Support Staff 7 Posted by Steve on 24 May, 2017 11:23 AM

   

   Hey Burkhard,

   thanks for the updates. Great news to hear you were able to retrieve the password from your old mac. Please consider storing it in a secure location (bank vault, password manager, hidden place in your home, ...) so you don't run into this situation in the future.

   If your key expires soon, please re-new the expiration date.

   Should your subkey be expired, please create a new subkey.

   1. navigate to the subkey tab
      
   2. click the "+" button below
      
   3. confirm with "Generate subkey"

   Double click your sec/pub key in GPG Keychain and then you'll see a "Change" button next to the expiry date.

   Let me know if that worked.

   Kindly,
   steve

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8. Support Staff 8 Posted by Steve on 18 Aug, 2017 08:43 AM

   

   Closing, since no further user feedback was received. Should your problem persist, feel free to re-open this discussion any time.

   All the best, steve

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9. Steve closed this discussion on 18 Aug, 2017 08:43 AM.