How to convert a (binary) .key PGP file to an ASCII-armored file?

pgp
Bruce picture Bruce · Mar 20, 2014 · Viewed 18k times · Source

Is there a way to convert a (binary) .key file to an ASCII-armored .asc file?

There is a previous post which seems to suggest the file extension don't matter, the file content is the same: What is the difference b/w .pkr and .key file with respect to PGP?

Answer

Jens Erat picture Jens Erat · Mar 20, 2014

You can use GnuPG for this. From man gpg:

   --enarmor
   --dearmor
          Pack or unpack an arbitrary input into/from an OpenPGP ASCII armor.
          This is a GnuPG extension to OpenPGP and in general not very useful.

--enarmor reads from stdin and outputs the armored version to stdout, --dearmor works the other way round. For ASCII armoring a binary keyring, use gpg --enarmor <file.key >file.asc.

Although the two files are different, they share the same OpenPGP packets and can be converted in both directions. The ASCII-armored version was created for usage in e-mail and other plain ASCII protocols.

Related questions

Can't check signature: public key not found

I try to decrypt file using following command: gpg --output file.txt --decrypt file.pgp File is decrypted successfully but i get an error: "gpg: Can't check signature: public key not found" Any idea, why I get this error?

Read More
PGP Encryption and Decryption with Java

I want to decrypt a file using PGP keys. I have downloaded PGP keys installer and installed. Using that I created a text file and encrypted the text file using PGP keys. Then I got a .pgp extension file which …

Read More
How to do PGP in Python (generate keys, encrypt/decrypt)

I'm making a program in Python to be distributed to windows users via an installer. The program needs to be able to download a file every day encrypted with the user's public key and then decrypt it. So I need …

Read More