Free-GPGMail

This is a liberated version of GPG Mail®, an Apple Mail plugin sold with a support plan as part of the GPG Suite® by GPGTools.

While the seller of the commercial product has the right to charge for a support plan and place DRM into their product, it is still BSD and GPL licensed software which requires the source code to be available.

This repository and project uses the open source code with the DRM code replaced so the product can be used without a license key, support plan or online activation.

Rather than building the entire suite and installer, this project just concentrates on building the "mailbundle", the plugin for Apple Mail.

We also publish a copy of the original source packages and exercise our right, granted by the open source license, to redistribute the compiled suite without any business involved. This does not constitute any endorsement or promotion of our releases by the intermediate copyright holders.

Depending on supported macOS versions, there are different versions of the plugin available:

Mailbundle	10.13	10.14	10.15	11	12	13
	High Sierra	Mojave	Catalina	Big Sur	Monterey	Ventura
Free-GPGMail 3	x	x
Free-GPGMail 4	x	x	x
Free-GPGMail 5*		u	u	s
Free-GPGMail 6					x
Free-GPGMail 7						x

(*) While Big Sur requires Free-GPGMail 5 to be codesigned, Mojave and Catalina do not like the code signature of the provided mailbundles. Thus, we publish an unsigned and a signed version of the Free-GPGMail 5 mailbundle.

Note that GnuPG and Libmacgpg must be installed first and then the mailbundle binaries can be activated. You can compile them from source or install them from the GPG Suite with the same "year.decimal" version as Free-GPGMail.

Build Instructions

Note: If you want to use pre-compiled, signed, and notarized mailbundles, you can download a mailbundle from the release page.

This build uses Xcode®. Command line build tools must be installed.

1. Go to the Source directory and run make for the desired Free-GPGMail version:

    cd Source/
    make GPGMail_$n
   

   where valid values for $n are 3 to 6. This will create a Free-GPGMail_$n.mailbundle in bundles/. If you want to build bundles for all versions, just call make.

2. On Big Sur or later, if you want to use the mailbundle on a different machine than where it has been built, you may need to codesign the mailbundle with a developer key, or add a Gatekeeper rule after installation (see below):

    sudo spctl --add ~/Library/Mail/Bundles/Free-GPGMail_*.mailbundle
   

Installation

1. Download and install Free-GPGMail:

   • Using Homebrew:

     brew install --cask free-gpgmail

     If you receive an error mkdir: /Users/YOUR_USERNAME/Library/Mail/Bundles: Operation not permitted, open the Security & Privacy system preference panel, and grant "Full Disk Access" to terminal. Retry the installation.

   • or manually:

     1. Download and install the GPG Suite .dmg with the same "year.decimal" version from the commercial seller or from the Free-GPGMail releases page.

        • If you are asked by the installer whether you want to "enable GPG Mail now", say Not Now and check I am not interested in GPG Mail. Don't ask me again.

     2. Build or download a Free-GPGMail mailbundle compatible with your macOS version.

     3. Create a folder ~/Library/Mail/Bundles/ and drag Free-GPGMail_<version>.mailbundle into that folder. (~/Library may be hidden in Finder, but you can enable the visibility in "Show View Options" while you are in Home)

2. Restart Mail.app, go to Preferences -> General -> Manage Plugins....

   If the "Manage Plugins" button is not present in the lower left corner, open a terminal and run:

   sudo defaults write “/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail” EnableBundles 1
   defaults write com.apple.mail EnableBundles -bool true

   Then restart Mail.app again.

   • Make sure that GPGMailLoader_*.mailbundle, if present, is disabled.
   • Enable the Free-GPGMail_<version>.mailbundle.
   • Apply and Restart Mail.

3. In Mail.app, check Preferences -> Free-GPGMail. If it says that you are in Trial Mode or Decryption Only Mode, hit Activate. It will perform a dummy activation routine.

Bug Reports and User Support

This project is run by volunteers in the free and open source spirit. Contributions are welcome. Problems with building or installing Free-GPGMail should be posted in the GitHub issue tracker. If you need help with the program itself, consider buying the commercial product and make them work for their money.

Trademarks

Apple® and Xcode® are trademarks of Apple Inc.

GPG Mail®, GPG Suite® and GPGTools® are trademarks of GPGTools GmbH.

Neither use of these terms within this Readme or within Free-GPGMail constitutes endorsement of Free-GPGMail by the respective holders. Free-GPGMail is a non-commercial software without any business involved.