Thunderbird notes

This page contains notes for using Mozilla Thunderbird.

OpenPGP

Enable external GnuPG interaction (e.g. for smartcards and externally generated subkeys)

• Open the config editor (bottom of Edit -> Settings -> General)
• Change preference name mail.openpgp.allow_external_gnupg from false to true
• Enter “Add Key” dialogue (Edit -> Account Settings -> (some account) -> End-To-End Encryption -> OpenPGP -> Add Key…)
  • Select “Use your external key through GnuPG (e.g. from a smartcard)”. Click the “Continue” button.
  • Enter your primary key long ID in hexadecimal (e.g. A0A295ABDC3469C9) into the “Secret Key ID” box.
  • Press the “Save key ID” button.
• Add your public key
  • In command line, run $ gpg --export --armor --output $HOME/mypubkey.asc -- 0xA0A295ABDC3469C9 . Copy to your clipboard the resulting text from -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- to -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----, inclusive.
  • Open the “OpenPGP Key Manager” (Edit -> Account Settings -> (some account) -> End-To-End Encryption -> OpenPGP -> OpenPGP Key Manager)
  • Edit -> Import Key(s) from Clipboard
  • If asked the question “Do you accept this key for verifying digital signatures and for encrypting messages, for all shown email addresses?”, select “Accepted (unverified)”.
  • Click “Import”.
  • In the OpenPGP Key Manager, make sure none of your expired keys from previous import operations are present (narrow columns or widen window to see the “Expiry” column).
• Restart Thunderbird (make sure to close all drafts and windows)
• When drafting a new message, enable digital signing by clicking the “OpenPGP” dropdown button, then making sure “Digitaly Sign” is has a check mark.
  • To digitally sign with an OpenPGP key by default, go to Account Settings -> End-To-End Encryption and check “Sign unencrypted messages”. To encrypt by default, select “Enable encryption for new messages”.

See also

• Mozilla Thunderbird

External links

• bk4, reboil.com