saved private public key on s iCloud but lost private key and old MacBook sold ??
recently bought new Macbook and saved my public and private keys to iCloud and on new MacBook it won't let me import private key and I've sold old Mac so can't get it bk bit rushed at time n now I've relised that I've uploaded public key twice and not the pub n private keys can someone help ??
Comments are currently closed for this discussion. You can start a new one.
Keyboard shortcuts
Generic
| ? | Show this help |
|---|---|
| ESC | Blurs the current field |
Comment Form
| r | Focus the comment reply box |
|---|---|
| ^ + ↩ | Submit the comment |
You can use Command ⌘ instead of Control ^ on Mac
Support Staff 1 Posted by Steve on 23 Aug, 2020 02:21 PM
Hi Charles,
welcome to the GPGTools support platform. Sorry you are having problems using GPG Suite.
What do you mean when you say you saved your keys to iCloud? You should never upload your secret keys to any online service like icloud, dropbox and the like.
How did you import the information on your new mac? You can open the key file with some text editor to see the information stored in the file. If you do not see "private key" you only stored the public keys. Do you have a backup of your old mac?
This KB-article explains what to do if you forgot your password or lost access to your secret key.
All the best,
Steve
2 Posted by charles on 23 Aug, 2020 03:12 PM
unfortunately I was foolish and the old Mac is sold and long gone and no bk up file I thought that I had it sorted threw I cloud and I just remembered I exported the keys on memory stick but it had 2 public keys on menory stick don't now why there marked secret and public but when I look properly tho they both begin wit public key so long I had the other laptop I knew something like this would happen !! is there anything I can do I've been on terminal but no sign of key anywhere and keychain to if only I switch Macs when I had them both togther
Support Staff 3 Posted by Steve on 24 Aug, 2020 09:35 AM
Hey Charles,
scroll the entire file and see if you find "private key" further down. The change to always display the secret key at the top is rather new and maybe your export might be from before that change. The fact the file is named "secret key" would indicate it indeed should include the secret key (unless you manually renamed and only exported the pub key that is).
Is you still cannot manage to find any trace of your secret key without the old mac and no backup you are out of luck and will sadly have to create a new key.
Steve closed this discussion on 04 Sep, 2020 10:06 AM.