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Got your email about Sonoma support

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tony.simek

25 Sep, 2023 11:56 PM

Thank you for being ahead of the conversation and for advocating with Apple for them to get their API house in order.

GPG Tools team has done a great job, and glad to see you will be having support for the latest when able to do so. Thank you for the proactive communication!!!!

1. Support Staff 1 Posted by Steve on 26 Sep, 2023 07:37 AM

   

   HI Tony,

   thanks so much for taking the time to share your thoughts. We are glad to hear the info is appreciated.

   We'll keep pushing and will let you know once we have more news.

   Have a great day,
   Steve

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2. 2 Posted by Matthias on 26 Sep, 2023 02:24 PM

   

   I would appreciate if we would geht an e-mail notice as soon as GPG is working with Sonoma. Thanks for all the work you did until now and hopefully in the future, too.
   Best regards, Matthias

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3. Support Staff 3 Posted by Steve on 26 Sep, 2023 02:36 PM

   

   We will of course do that. The open ticket is linked to this discussion already.

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4. 4 Posted by Mark Boddy on 26 Sep, 2023 02:58 PM

   

   As Tony said: thanks very much for getting out in front of this. As a confirmed pessimist, I have to ask: what are our options if Apple ultimately won't provide the features you need in the API?

   I have a LARGE archive of sent and received mail (20+ years' worth), much of which was encrypted, and therefore was (it appears) stored in encrypted form. Is there a way to batch decrypt the messages in those archived mailboxes?

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5. Support Staff 5 Posted by Luke Le on 26 Sep, 2023 03:08 PM

   

   Hi Mark,

   your pessimism is very much understandable and there was certainly a time when we ourselves were much more hopeful about what Mail Extensions could mean for us extension developers.

   The good thing is, since OpenPGP is an open standard you won't lose any data.
   One way would be to export your Mail data as mbox file which could then be imported by for example Thunderbird. That way they would even be searchable still (via subject at least)

   If push comes to shove we might consider creating a dedicated exporter app which would batch decrypt mail messages. But for now, let's not go down that dark road.

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6. 6 Posted by Mark Boddy on 26 Sep, 2023 03:39 PM

   

   Thanks very much for the reply, and for the reminder about OpenPGP.

   As you suggest, that provides enough of a fallback to make waiting for events a reasonable approach.

   —Mark

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7. 7 Posted by soundbubble on 29 Sep, 2023 10:15 AM

   

   Is there any way we can add up joint pressure to APPLE (E-Mail / Forum / ??) to have them cooperate with your team?

   Steps and directions of what we can do would be helpful.

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8. 8 Posted by soundbubble on 29 Sep, 2023 10:24 AM

   

   As an alternative, I personally have also installed CanaryMail which seamlessly integrates with PGP encryption, and in addition also allows the sending of ENCRYPTED Mails to recepients who do not have PGP. Maybe this is an alternative until the issue with our lontg-time trusted GPG TOOLS Team is solved. We hope this soon can be the case.

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9. Support Staff 9 Posted by Steve on 29 Sep, 2023 05:49 PM

   

   One thing that may be helpful is, to share with Apple, why OpenPGP matters to you and that you would love to see support for OpenPGP in Mail app in macOS going forward:
   https://www.apple.com/feedback/mail.html

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10. 10 Posted by soundbubble on 29 Sep, 2023 06:39 PM

    

    Thank you Steve - already left an explanatory comment to Apple, asking them to support your team so that we can rely on Apple … etc etc.

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11. Steve closed this discussion on 11 Oct, 2023 10:37 PM.

12. Steve re-opened this discussion on 23 Nov, 2023 02:12 AM

13. Support Staff 11 Posted by Steve on 23 Nov, 2023 02:12 AM

    

    Hi all,

    today we finally want to share exciting news in regards to macOS 14 Sonoma with you.

    We are publishing a first beta version of GPG Mail. This is a complete rewrite and the first time ever GPG Mail is available in the form of a Mail Extension.

    As you can see in the list below there are still many remaining issues Apple has not yet fixed. All of these bugs are filed with Apple but at this time, we don't know when and if they will be addressed.
    Expect bugs - e.g. after opening Mail app the first selected email is not decrypted - and even crashes (see Known Issue for saving drafts on macOS 14.2)
    In some cases the extension stops working but still shows as enabled in Mail › Settings › Extensions. In that case it’s necessary to logout / login or reboot your mac. If a composing window is left open when closing Mail, the next time Mail is started it won’t use the extension until the extension is re-enabled via Mail › Settings › Extensions (see Known Issues).

    Please report any findings or other feedback via System Settings > GPG Suite > Contact Support. We do recommend sending in screenshots or videos, since they often help us to better understand problems you might be seeing. You can add screenshots after you have reported a problem. So first file the report, click send, then add screenshots or screencasts.

    Please download GPG Suite 3485n containing GPG Mail as Mail Extension from:
    https://gpgtools.com/staging-releases/GPG_Suite%2BSonoma.dmg

    After installation, open Mail and go to Settings › Extensions. Activate GPG Mail and you should be ready for testing.
    During the beta period your current GPG Mail Support Plans will continue working.

    Known issues

    • FB13380621 If a compose window was open when Mail was last closed, which is restored on launch, no message will be processed by the extension until the GPG Mail Extension is disabled and re-enabled manually via Mail › Settings › Extensions
    • FB12848141 Drafts are not encrypted. Already encrypted drafts will be stored in plain(!) on the mail server if the user continues to edit them
    • FB9216546 After launch, if a message is pre-selected it will not be processed by GPG Mail Workaround: de-select and re-select the message
    • FB13303274On macOS 14.2 betas Mail will crash if a draft is saved if any extension is enabled and neither the sign button nor the encrypt button are active
      
    • FB13394225 If the extension becomes unresponsive or Mail can't connect to it it will still show as enabled in Mail › Settings › Extensions but the user won't be alerted Workaround: Logout/Login or Restart of the computer solves this in most cases
    • FB13381340 In offline mode, the extension will not be called to decrypt / verify messages
    • FB9222544 The sign and encrypt button will be toggled on or off based on the state of the last composed message instead of based on the defaults set in GPG Keychain › Settings › GPG Mail or the security status of the original message in case of a reply
    • FB12193522, FB13383153 There is currently no warning in case a user attempts to reply to an encrypted message in plain
    • FB12193526 If the GPG Keyring is edited (new keys, updated keys) Mail has to be restarted for the changes to be reflected
    • FB12191237 A "For security reasons remote content is not loaded." banner might be shown even though no remote content is included in the message
    • FB12193519 There's no special hint / message in the compose window if no secret key is for the sender is available or an available secret key can't be used (e.g. expired)
    • FB13381340 It's not possible to switch between S/MIME and OpenPGP when composing a message
    • FB12193528 Compose window might not be animated out immediately when pressing send. Don't press send repeatedly
    • FB12193520 Partial Inline PGP encrypted / signed message are currently not supported
    • FB12056175 The signature detail view might be display at "unusal" positions

    Best regards,
    Steve

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14. 12 Posted by tony.simek on 23 Nov, 2023 07:02 AM

    

    Thank you for the great news and effort! You have made more progress with Apple than many do. They obviously understand that we love GPGtools and want it to keep being workable!

    The link is not working for me, but it may be something I am doing wrong. Can somebody check on the link to see if it works for you?

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15. 13 Posted by Bjorn De Sutter on 23 Nov, 2023 11:36 AM

    

    Clicking the link did not work for me, and neither did copying the URL into Chrome. Copying it into Safari seems to have worked, however.

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16. Support Staff 14 Posted by Steve on 23 Nov, 2023 01:51 PM

    

    Hi Tony and Bjorn,

    can you please share browser and exact version you are using when running into trouble.

    Can you retry with Firefox and see if the link then loads as expected.

    We reproduced a problem with Brave but have yet to understand why this misbehavior of the browser happens.

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17. 15 Posted by tony.simek on 23 Nov, 2023 03:12 PM

    

    Yes- I used brave, safari and a few more I cannot remember. Everything except for Firefox which I was planning on switching back to. : )
    Tony Simek

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18. 16 Posted by Mauro Loda on 24 Nov, 2023 07:25 AM

    

    Thanks for the beta release. Good job!

    File downloaded and installed correctly, Mail extension activated.
    so far, All is working as expected.
    I'll notifiy in case of UI/X issues.

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19. 17 Posted by Bjorn De Sutter on 24 Nov, 2023 08:52 AM

    

    @steve: I tried to reproduce, but now the link worked in chrome as well. I don't know what changed to make the problem go away.

    I do have another problem now, however: Mail keeps crashing as soon as I launch it. I briefly see the main window, and then it crashes.

    Is there anyway to disable the extension from outside the Mail app?

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20. 18 Posted by Bjorn De Sutter on 24 Nov, 2023 08:55 AM

    

    Something else I just noticed: In the system settings, there is a GPG Suite item, but when I click on it, it doesn't show any setting options. That seems not as intended, does it?

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21. 19 Posted by Bjorn De Sutter on 24 Nov, 2023 09:01 AM

    

    Search for extensions in the system settings, I found the "Added extensions" where I could disable it, and then Mail started up properly again. Still nothing to see in the GPG Suite tab in System Settings, however, so I cannot file bug reports via that :-(

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22. Support Staff 20 Posted by Luke Le on 24 Nov, 2023 09:13 AM

    

    Yes, GPG Suite in Settings.app should show configuration options as it always did.
    Could you please try to restart your computer or login/logout and see if that helps? In few instances a particular service used by our tools is not properly started.

    Please let us know if that helped.

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23. 21 Posted by Bjorn De Sutter on 24 Nov, 2023 09:42 AM

    

    Restarting the computer indeed solved that problem, I now see a proper settings window again.

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24. 22 Posted by tony.simek on 24 Nov, 2023 02:46 PM

    

    Install worked perfectly!
    Post activation with my key, the banner to activate was persistent but could be dismissed. After a restart though, no further warnings to activate.
    GPG settings appear properly in the control panel.
    Overall, a great beta! Thank you! Back in operation and it can only get better from here as Apple adds functionality for the extension ecosystem. Thank you GPG Tools!!

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25. Support Staff 23 Posted by Steve on 24 Nov, 2023 04:46 PM

    

    Thanks so much for your kind words and feedback, Tony - it does mean a lot to us.

    We are very aware of the current shortcomings which is also why we shared the Known Issues list.

    Obviously we'll continue our work to further improve GPG Mail on macOS Sonoma.

    If you encounter issues, please do create new discussions so we can focus on the problem on a per case basis.

    Have a great weekend 🏝️

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26. Steve closed this discussion on 24 Nov, 2023 04:46 PM.