Previous: Mail-mode integration, Up: Commands

### 3.6 Encrypting/decrypting *.gpg files

By default, every file whose name ends with ‘`.gpg`’ will be treated as encrypted. That is, when you open such a file, the decrypted text is inserted in the buffer rather than encrypted one. Similarly, when you save the buffer to a ‘`foo.gpg`’ file, encrypted data is written.

The file name pattern for encrypted files can be controlled by epa-file-name-regexp.

— Variable: epa-file-name-regexp

> Regexp which matches filenames treated as encrypted.

You can disable this behavior with `M-x epa-file-disable`, and then get it back with `M-x epa-file-enable`.

— Command: epa-file-disable

> Disable automatic encryption/decryption of *.gpg files.

— Command: epa-file-enable

> Enable automatic encryption/decryption of *.gpg files.

By default, `epa-file` will try to use symmetric encryption, aka password-based encryption. If you want to use public key encryption instead, do `M-x epa-file-select-keys`, which will pops up the key selection dialog.

— Command: epa-file-select-keys

> Select recipient keys to encrypt the currently visiting file with public key encryption.

You can also change the default behavior with the variable epa-file-select-keys.

— Variable: epa-file-select-keys

> Control whether or not to pop up the key selection dialog.

For frequently visited files, it might be a good idea to tell Emacs which encryption method should be used through See File Variables. Use the `epa-file-encrypt-to` local variable for this. For example, if you want an Elisp file should be encrypted with a public key associated with an email address ‘`ueno@unixuser.org`’, add the following line to the beginning of the file.

         ;; -*- epa-file-encrypt-to: ("ueno@unixuser.org") -*-

Instead, if you want the file always (regardless of the value of the `epa-file-select-keys` variable) encrypted with symmetric encryption, change the line as follows.

         ;; -*- epa-file-encrypt-to: nil -*-

Other variables which control the automatic encryption/decryption behavior are below.

— Variable: epa-file-cache-passphrase-for-symmetric-encryption

> If non-`nil`, cache passphrase for symmetric encryption. The default value is `nil`.

— Variable: epa-file-inhibit-auto-save

> If non-`nil`, disable auto-saving when opening an encrypted file. The default value is `t`.