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GPG Keychain: Want to encrypt my sensitive files before storing them online

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sadasjdkakk21

09 Jul, 2017 11:02 PM

I'm trying to understand how this works before I commit to the subject line. I travel a lot so I'd rather not be carrying offline copies with me in case I am robbed/I lose them so what I wanted to do was store sensitive files like SSN etc in a password manager like Lastpass. However, despite assurances that everything is heavily encrypted on those services, I'd still feel more comfortable if I encrypted the data myself first. I've downloaded GPG suite and I've encrypted a test file successfully but if I copy the exact same file to a new folder and then try to decrypt the copy, then the decryption fails. I've checked the file permissions and both files are effectively identical.

What did you expect instead

Is this an expected scenario? I would have thought that if the files were identical they should be decryptable by the same secret?

Describe steps leading to the problem.

Encrypt file. Decrypt works successfully. Copied encrypted file and decrypting copy fails.

Are you using any other Mail.app plugins?

No. Not using mail at all.

1. Support Staff 1 Posted by Steve on 10 Jul, 2017 02:06 PM

   

   Hi sadasjdkakk21,

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

   The following two Knowledge Base articles explain how GPGServices is used:

   • KB explaining how to encrypt and sign text or files
   • KB explaining decryption and verification

   Are you doing the decrypting on the same machine as you did the encryption? When you open GPG Keychain and tick the bottom right option in the main window, how many keys do you then see listed?

   Let me know if you are able to encrypt and decrypt as expected following those tutorials.

   All the best,
   steve

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2. Support Staff 2 Posted by Steve on 18 Aug, 2017 11:10 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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3. Steve closed this discussion on 18 Aug, 2017 11:10 AM.