Encrypt and Decrypt with GPG

So now it is time to get to the good part, Woohoo !! We get to ACTUALLY use GnuPG/GPG. Here we will use it to encrypt & decrypt stuff.

Oh & Please note that you cannot encrypt folders, ONLY FILES & MESSAGES can be encrypted, of course you can just convert/pack up the folders into compressed files called TarBalls [One of my scripts from the SimpleScripts-Repository can do that]. In order to encrypt a file just type:

 gpg -r EMAIL_ID -e FILE_NAME 
		OR 
 gpg --encrypt --recipient EMAIL_ID FILE_NAME

				ALTERNATIVELY YOU CAN USE THIS
				
 gpg -r EMAIL_ID -o NEW_FILE_NAME -e FILE_NAME 
		OR 
 gpg --encrypt --output NEW_FILE_NAME --recipient EMAIL_ID FILE_NAME

The encrypted-file will have an extension ".gpg" given automatically by GnuPG/GPG by DEFAULT or it will have the ".asc" extension instead if you use the "armor" option in the command.

ARMOR-Option:
This option just makes the encrypted/signed file look more human-friendly via changing the output from the DEFAULT Binary-Format [which is usually denoted by ".gpg" file-extension] to an Armored-ASCII Format [Denoted by the ".asc" file-extension] which is ESPECIALLY better for sharing & handling in text-oriented environments like Email/Web-Pages due to the the fact that the output is now text-based & hence more human-readable than the gibberish alien-like output of the "BINARY-FORMAT". This format can be easily copied, pasted or shared without any potential data-corruption/alteration.

To use the "Armored-ASCII Format" just use the option "--armor" or "-a" [which is the shortened/shortcut-version]. You can use this format in functionalities OTHER than Encryption; like in case of *Signing & Exporting-Keys* as well.

gpg -r EMAIL_ID -e -a FILE_NAME 
	OR 
gpg --encrypt --armor --recipient EMAIL_ID FILE_NAME

PERSONAL-OPINION ⇢ I think you should use the "ARMOR" option as much as possible & the only exception I make is usually in the case of "DETACHED-SIGNATURES". ALTHOUGH it is entirely upto you to decide.

Now in order to DECRYPT the encrypted file and maybe redirect the ouput to a file of a name of your choosing [Here; "--output" & "-o" are the same], just type:

 gpg -d FILE_NAME.gpg > FILE_NAME
		OR
 gpg --decrypt --output NEW_FILE_NAME FILE_NAME.gpg
		OR
 gpg --decrypt -o NEW_FILE_NAME FILE_NAME.gpg

Now if you wanted to encrypt a text-message ONLY & not an entire file containing a text-message then simply do the following & copy the results into a file:

echo "YOUR_MESSAGE" | gpg -e --armor -r EMAIL_ID
        OR 
echo "YOUR_MESSAGE" | gpg --encrypt --armor -r EMAIL_ID

REMINDER; here the file will not have a .gpg extension as the file was created by you seperately, ONLY the message was encrypted [AKA the text]. So now in order to decrypt it, you can simply do the following:

cat MESSAGE_FILE | gpg -d
		OR
cat MESSAGE_FILE | gpg --decrypt

In both cases you are "piping" [Denoted by the symbol* "|"] the message & the file containing the message into GnuPG/GPG.

Oh & I almost forgot ↴
if you want to encrypt your files for yourself then just "set the recipient to YOUR EMAIL-ID".