Thunderbird/Enigmail - ArchWiki

# Thunderbird/Enigmail

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< Thunderbird

Enigmail is a Thunderbird extension that allows writing and receiving email signed and/or encrypted with the OpenPGP standard. It relies on the GnuPG.

Common packages include: thunderbird-enigmailAUR and thunderbird-enigmail-binAUR.

## Usage

### Sharing the public key

To distribute the public key one may upload it to a keyserver.

### Encrypting emails

Encryption does not always work properly with emails containing HTML. It is best to use plain text by choosing Options > Delivery Format > Plain Text Only in the new email window.

Once the email is finished it can be signed through the OpenPGP menu.

### Decrypting emails

Assuming that the email was encrypted properly, just trying to open it should result in a pop-up asking to type in the keyphrase.

## Troubleshooting

### Blank draft messages

If after upgrading to gnupg v2.1 your saved draft emails have gone "blank" and show a pink bar displaying:

    Enigmail Error - no matching private/secret key found to decrypt message; click on 'Details' button for more information

or, when you have a "Write" window open you repeatedly see a popup window with:

    The email address or key ID 0xkey_id cannot be matched to a valid, not expired OpenPGP key.
    Please ensure that you have a valid OpenPGP key, and that your account settings point to that key.

and `gpg --list-keys` fails to show some keys that used to be there, see GnuPG invalid packet workaround.

Category:

- Email clients