[Gpg4win-users-en] How to do symmetric encryption in GPG4win through the GUI?

[Andre Heinecke]

Hi,

On Monday 15 August 2016 16:34:11 Frank Siebenlist wrote:
> We’re trying to exchange encrypted files between Macs and PCs, using
> MacGPG/GPGTools and Gpg4Win.
> 
> Encryption is through symmetric encryption with a passphrase.
> (please refrain from telling me to use public key encryption ;-) )

Could you roughly outline what your use case for this is?
We had a bit of a discussion if / how we should add symmetric encryption to 
the UI and what the use cases for that could be.

> On the Mac we have the option to symmetrically encrypt/decrypt through the
> GUI, but on the PC, reading the docs, I cannot find that option in the GUI
> of Gpg4Win. (unfortunately, I have only access to a Mac but have to support
> PC users remotely…)

The bad news is that currently Gpg4win-Stable does not have the option.

The Good news is that our next major upgrade (3.0) will have that option:

http://files.intevation.de/users/aheinecke/sigencfiles-new.png

This is how the new Sign / Encrypt Files dialog looks like and there the 
"Encrypt with password" checkbox enables symmetric encryption. If you disable 
sign and "Encrypt for me" this results in Symmetric only encryption.

The eta of that version is still a bit in the future (end of year) and 
especially that dialog is likely to see some more changes regarding layout and 
behavior.

You can obtain the latest beta installers of gpg4win-3.0 from:

 https://wiki.gnupg.org/Gpg4win/Testversions

> The following thread from 2012:
> http://marc.info/?l=gpg4win-users-en&m=133614296410301
> seems to hint that you can only do that through the command line and not
> through the file-explorer integration.
> 
> Is that still the case?

For gpg4win-2.3.2 this is still the case. You could work around that if you 
write a batch file that sets up the command line call and then configure windows 
to associate .gpg files to be opened with that batch file as the passphrase 
entry will be GUI.

Regards,
Andre

-- 
Andre Heinecke |  ++49-541-335083-262  | http://www.intevation.de/
Intevation GmbH, Neuer Graben 17, 49074 Osnabrück | AG Osnabrück, HR B 18998
Geschäftsführer: Frank Koormann, Bernhard Reiter, Dr. Jan-Oliver Wagner
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