Auto Key Creation

I finally got around to installing 3.1.11 along with Enigmail add-on for Thunderbird. One thing that surprised me when I opened Kleopatra is “something” had created 3 sets of keys for the 3 email accounts I have setup in Thunderbird.

It’s been a little while since I have used this combination so I’m not sure if that is normal in the newer builds or ???

Thanks

The Thunderbird developers have recently added a lot of automation. This is probably part of it.
Gpg4win is innocent about this, at least with Version 3.1.11 we do not automatically generate keys in any part of “our” Software. Although there are always requests about that we will do so only if we add something at the same time that pushes users more towards backing up their key. Otherwise it is our opinion that too much automation will result in bad user experiences of “I cannot read my mail anymore”.

I wasn’t sure if it was GPG4Win (as the last one I used was pretty old) or Enigmail. Thanks for helping me figure out which one created it. It creates them without passphrase as well. I guess if it has asked about doing it first I would be less surprised…

I wonder what will happen in the next Thunderbird (78?) that has built in PGP support??

Hi Mark,
if you find out, feel free to post a link here. :wink:
(I guess there will be published plans about what Thunderbird/Enigmail will do.)

Regards,
Bernhard

Hi Bernhard,

This is the article I stumbled upon.

https://blog.thunderbird.net/2019/10/thunderbird-enigmail-and-openpgp/

With thunderbirds own PGP implementation the keyrings would be out of sync.

From personal talks I know that there is a plan to do a one time import of an existing GnuPG keyring into the internal implementation and that will be it.

You might want to take a look at Claws mail. I am very pessimistic regarding the future of OpenPGP in thunderbird.

Thanks for the heads up. I like Thunderbird so I HOPE they can find a way to make it work with others.