Help needed

[Paul R. Ramer]

On 04/24/2016 09:51 AM, Daniel H. Werner wrote:
> I downloaded GPGTools on my Mac laptop (I have not done it on my Mac desktop yet 
> as I want to be sure I know what I am doing!!!) and did the Install.
> I Imported my existing keys.
> And I have several question/problems:

First off, I can't answer all of your questions, because I am not
familiar with GPGTools.  But I have provided answers to some of your
questions.

> 1) When I open a new email message window, I see a green box in the upper right 
> hand corner which is labeled “OpenPGP”. Is that right?

Yes, it is.  If you visit https://gpgtools.org/ and scroll to the bottom
of the page, you will see slides that you can click through.  One of
them shows a screenshot of this.

> 2) Should I be able to toggle GPG on and off;

I believe so.  The slide that I referred to above says that you can
click the lock button (it is a button with a glyph in the form of a
lock) to encrypt your email to the recipient.

> 3) I composed a short Test message to send to myself. In order to Encrypt it, I 
> selected the text, went to Services and selected Encrypt. That gave me the 
> encrypted code in a new window. It seemed to me that I then had to select that 
> text, copy and then paste it into the new message.  There has to be a simpler 
> way to perform these functions? What are they?

I believe you are supposed to click the lock button I mentioned above.
Please see the section of website that I referred to earlier.

> 4) My existing keys were created (in 2009 in PGP) at 2048 length.  Should I 
> change them to 4096?  If so, how?

No, that is not necessary.  Do know that many people have *strong*
opinions about key length that are based little empirical fact. [1]  See
the GnuPG FAQ topic about this. [2]

> 5) Even if I do not Encrypt the outgoing message, I get a window asking for my 
> Passphrase. In the older PGP version, I had the option to cache the Passphrase 
> so I did not have to enter it every time. How do I simplify this function?

I am sorry.  I don't know the answer to this question.

Hope that helps,

-Paul

[1] I apologized to the list if I have opened that horrendous can of
worms again by answering this question.
[2] https://gnupg.org/faq/gnupg-faq.html#no_default_of_rsa4096