2024-09-16: GPG Suite beta includes a GPG Mail version that supports the just released macOS Sequoia. Download here.

Mail and GPG Suite logo on macOS Sonoma background

GPG Mail as Mail Extension

Our current beta of GPG Mail supports macOS Sonoma as well as macOS Sequoia.

GPG Mail for macOS Sonoma and later is now a Mail Extension based on Apple's official API to enhance macOS Mail.

If you plan to use GPG Mail for macOS Sonoma or later in production, please make sure to have a look at the list of Known Issues below.

To provide you the best OpenPGP experience possible on macOS, we continue working with Apple to fix the remaining issues.

Downloadfor macOS Sonoma and macOS Sequoia

Installation & Activation of GPG Mail Extension

GPG Mail 8 for macOS Sonoma and later will be a paid upgrade. For the time of the beta phase an existing GPG Mail 7 Support Plan does suffice. Alternatively you can try GPG Mail 8 for 30 days if you have not started a trial in the past.

Known Issues

Please read the known issues and potential workarounds to get the best experience and stability out of this beta version of GPG Mail for macOS Sonoma.

›If Mail loses connection to the extension the encryption and sign buttons in compose windows are not updated and might lead to messages being sent in plain that were supposed to be encrypted

In case the extension crashes or Mail loses the connection for some other reason, the compose window UI doesn't reflect that and might still show the encrypt and sign button as enabled, but the message might be sent in plain instead of being sent encrypted.

Workaround

None for now.

›Messages will not be decrypted or verified when no internet connection is available

If offline mode is enabled or no internet connection is available, each message will show an empty body.

Workaround

Restore internet connectivity.

›Messages fail to display in case of bad internet connectivity

A loading spinner might be shown but disappear after a while and an empty message body will appear.

Workaround

De-select / re-select the message to try again.

›State of sign and encrypt button in composing window can't be set by GPG Mail

While previous versions of GPG Mail were able to automatically toggle encryption and signing in case of a reply to a signed and encrypted message or toggle the encryption and sign button based on user configured defaults, that is currently no longer possible. Instead the last toggled state of the sign and encryption button will be remembered and restored when composing new messages.

Workaround

None. Pay special attention to verify that the sign and encrypt buttons are toggled to the state you would expect.

›No support for encrypting drafts

At the moment it is not possible to encrypt drafts, since they can't always be reliably decrypted which could result in data loss of the draft content.
If existing encrypted drafts are continued, the draft content will be stored in plain on the mail server.

›The user is not warned when replying in plain to an encrypted message

In case the user starts composing a reply to an encrypted message, GPG Mail does not know whether or not the original message was encrypted and thus is not able to warn the user in case they are about to reply in plain due to missing recipient public keys for example.

›Other Issues

  • › At the moment the GnuPG groups feature is not supported and will arrive in a later release
  • › PGP-Partitioned messages are not fully supported but are processed in an acceptable manner
  • › GpgOL messages can't always be properly processed
  • › GPG Mail Support Plan Activation Banner is still shown after completing activation. To fix, restart Mail