Listing Keys

  • List All private GPG Keys
gpg --list-secret-keys
  • List All public GPG Keys
gpg --list-public-keys

or

gpg -k

Exporting Keys

  • to export one or more of your public GPG Keys
gpg --armor --export <ID or E-Mail>...
  • to export one or more of your private GPG Keys
gpg --armor --export-secret-key <ID or E-Mail>...

importing PGP Keys

this can be one or more Keys in one file Public or Private.

gpg --import <File Path>...

Encryption

  • to Encrypt a message to a Specific Person

if you have someone’s GPG Key in your local database you can encrypt a massage for that specific Person

gpg  -r <reciever's ID or E-Mail> --armor  --encrypt <filename>
  • to Encrypt a message secured by a pashphrase

this type of Encryption is also called Symetrical Encryption, since the same Key used for Encryption is also used for Decryption

gpg --symmetric <filename>

Advanced Options

--with-colons

the output is colon separated and can be filtered by using Programs such as sed, awk, cut.

this is very useful if you are planning to make a program that interfaces with GPG.


for example

gpg --with-colons --list-keys

gpg --with-colons --list-keys | grep ^uid | cut -d ':' -f 8,10

--armor

the outputed file will be ASCII encoded, this makes it easy to copy and paste