23

Is it possible to encrypt a message using PGP so that multiple recipients (each with their own public private keypair) can decrypt it? I'd like to email one message which can be decrypted by each person with their own keys.

Oliver Salzburg
  • 86,445
  • 63
  • 260
  • 306
ztnewman
  • 293
  • 2
  • 3
  • 5

1 Answers1

20

Yes, it's possible – practically all PGP software will let you add multiple recipients when encrypting; no additional configuration is needed.

Screenshot of a "recipients" window I grabbed off the googles

u1686_grawity
  • 426,297
  • 64
  • 894
  • 966
  • 21
    Just to add, what PGP does is generate a key for a symmetric cipher, and cipher that for each recipient with their public key. So the message for many recipients isn't much larger than that for 1. – vonbrand Feb 19 '13 at 23:03
  • 2
    Is there any technical limit on the number of recpients? Like a whole company of 100 people? – Alex Feb 26 '16 at 20:49
  • So the symmetric key is encrypted for each recipient with their public key. Does each receive a different ciphertext or the same ciphertext with a header length proportional to the number of recipients? – doughgle Nov 19 '19 at 11:53
  • There's one copy of ciphertext and multiple copies of the same symmetric key. – u1686_grawity Nov 19 '19 at 12:02