I can’t figure out how to send an encrypted email message from iPadOS mail. I go into Mail, advanced, and find the “encrypt by default” switch but it says I have no certificates. I can’t figure out how to get a certificate. I do not see any check marks or question marks or anything like that on the incoming mail. TIA. 🤔😉😊
iPad Air, iPadOS 16
Given the information that you’ve already provided, S/MIME really isn’t the solution for you. If you’re not running your own corporate Mail system, and properly comprehend how PKI-encryption works, S/MIME will be of no use to you whatsoever.
SSL Certificates are issued by a Certificate Authority (CA). Commonly the business for whom you are acting will have their own CA that is linked, via the trust chain, to a trusted Root CA. Certificates aren’t simply issued on an ad-hoc basis to an individual.
To obtain a certificate, you first generate a Certificate Signing Request (CSR) and submit this to the Issuing CA. Your signed certificate is returned to you to install. CSRs are not blindly signed; a rigorous process is followed in order to fully verify the identity of the requesting organisation.
Given the information that you’ve already provided, S/MIME really isn’t the solution for you. If you’re not running your own corporate Mail system, and properly comprehend how PKI-encryption works, S/MIME will be of no use to you whatsoever.
SSL Certificates are issued by a Certificate Authority (CA). Commonly the business for whom you are acting will have their own CA that is linked, via the trust chain, to a trusted Root CA. Certificates aren’t simply issued on an ad-hoc basis to an individual.
To obtain a certificate, you first generate a Certificate Signing Request (CSR) and submit this to the Issuing CA. Your signed certificate is returned to you to install. CSRs are not blindly signed; a rigorous process is followed in order to fully verify the identity of the requesting organisation.
You’ll not be able to natively send or receive encrypted email using the iPadOS Mail App. To use encrypted email, you’ll need to identify a third-party App that meets your need.
Remember - whoever you intend to send encrypted email must have access to the same capabilities as you - which for practical purposes, will likely require that they install the same (or compatible) email client.
PGP is one standard used by some, but is non-trivial to use. Proprietary solutions are of limited value. If you are communicating with other Apple Users, perhaps use iMessage - this being end-to-end encrypted between users - but is only accessible to users of Apple devices.
Encrypted email isn’t perhaps as straightforward as other encrypted communication Apps.
For email, you can only exchange encrypted email with other contacts that use the same encryption platform. While iOS/iPadOS supports S/MIME, requiring SSL Certificates, this is only useful where everyone else with whom you communicate via email also uses S/MIME.
There are other encrypted email standards - and many require an appropriate email client if you are to be able to use them - such as PGP.
There are also proprietary encrypted email solutions that try to solve the interoperability problem that exists when trying to send encrypted email to someone that doesn’t have access to the same encrypted email system - such as Virtru.
In summary, without you having a much better understanding of what you are attempting to achieve - and perhaps importantly with whom - providing coherent and specific advice will be difficult. Suffice to say at this point - unless you are likely to be using a corporate email system that supports S/MIME, this is perhaps unlikely to be a viable solution for your need.
Well, let’s assume that I am trying to originate an email message using Mail for iPadOS. So I have no encrypted message to respond to, and it’s just me, I’m not part of any organization. What advice might you have? Can I acquire an S/mime certificate (or whatever it would be called) somewhere? Would it be easier if I was on my iMac rather than my iPad?
(I did finally figure out how to encrypt the response to the message I was replying to; but it was all internal to Outlook 365. Being an old-time Mac-head, I am Windows averse.)
tnx. 🤔😉😊
What I am getting from your answer is that as an individual, since I apparently have no way of obtaining a certificate, as I have no CA (that I know of), that I simply cannot send an encrypted email through iPadOS mail. (I do, more or less, understand public key encryption. Is there someway I can obtain a key? Would that suffice?)
Is that fair to say?🤔😉😊
Unless you are regularly exchanging encrypted email with an organisation that accepts S/MIME (who will provide appropriate advice if they require you to use it) - for individuals such as you or I, S/MIME has no practical application.
Are there any ways that I can send an encrypted message? Google’s other responses to “how do I send encrypted mail in iPadOS“ seem to make references that I find unclear. I do occasionally use Gmail, but I see nothing in Settings that seemed to apply.
btw, your responses seem well-informed. Thanks. 🤔😉😊
OK. Good enough. Tells me what I needed to know. The experience I had today where I received an encrypted mail (the Office 365 message I alluded to above) was perhaps the first time I’ve ever received one through regular email (as opposed to, say, a credit union web site). I eventually realized that I could (it wasn’t obvious) reply to that message and it would go through Office 365 encryption. (I do wonder whether having my own copy of Office 365 would have enabled it. If worse comes to worse, I can always get a copy.) Undoubtedly, many similar systems have the same function. And since I have not yet, in over 30 years of being online, needed to originate an encrypted message, I will not sweat it. Thanks again, Lotus.🤔😉😊
Check the related article link at the top of this thread.
Encrypt mail in iPadOS mail
