Export a key

I like to export a key whenever I’ve created or changed it.

Export a public key with “gpg -ao public.asc --export USER-ID”.

Export a secret key with “gpg -ao secret.asc --export-secret-keys USER-ID”.

USER-ID can be anything that uniquely identifies the key, for example its fingerprint.

=> Get the fingerprint of a key

If you leave out USER-ID, all keys in your keyring will be exported. If you leave out “-a”, the exported data will be binary data instead of ASCII text. If you leave out “-o FILENAME”, the exported data will be printed to stdout instead of to a file.

You can distribute your public key (public.asc). Others can then import your public key and encrypt messages to you. Never distribute your secret key (secret.asc).

The data in secret.asc is a superset of the data in public.asc. This means that to restore a key completely, you only need secret.asc.

I like to use the filenames public.asc and secret.asc, but you can use other filenames of course.

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