Enigmail was an email encryption extension best known for bringing OpenPGP support to Mozilla Thunderbird. It allowed users to protect their correspondence with public-key encryption and digital signatures without leaving their email client.
The extension worked with GnuPG to perform cryptographic operations and provided a graphical interface for managing keys, configuring identities and controlling encryption behaviour. It became particularly popular with people who wanted to use encrypted email without learning GnuPG’s command-line interface.
Enigmail is no longer developed as a functional encryption extension for modern Thunderbird. Its functionality was superseded when Thunderbird incorporated OpenPGP support directly. The later Enigmail migration extension was intended to transfer existing keys and settings, not to provide additional encryption functionality.
This is free and open source software.
Key Features
- Provided OpenPGP email encryption and decryption within older Thunderbird releases.
- Supported digital signing and verification of email messages.
- Used GnuPG to perform encryption, decryption and key-management operations.
- Supported PGP/MIME and inline OpenPGP message formats.
- Graphical interface for importing, exporting and managing OpenPGP keys.
- Configurable signing and encryption defaults for individual email identities.
- Per-recipient rules for key selection and encryption preferences.
- Support for encrypted email attachments.
- Integration with keyservers for retrieving public keys.
- Support for Autocrypt key exchange.
- Verification of received signatures and message authenticity.
- Migration assistant for transferring existing keys and settings to Thunderbird’s integrated OpenPGP implementation.
Website: www.enigmail.net
Support:
Developer: Patrick Brunschwig
License: Mozilla Public License v2.0
Enigmail is written in JavaScript. Learn JavaScript with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
Related Software
| Email Encryption Tools | |
|---|---|
| GnuPG | Encrypt and sign data and communication |
| OpenPGP | Authenticating or encrypting data, using public key cryptography |
| Mailvelope | Extension for Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox |
| Enigmail | OpenPGP Email Security for Mozilla Applications |
| LibrePGP | Updated specification of the OpenPGP encryption standard |
| Mymail-Crypt for Gmail | Simple solution to mail encryption; not affiliated with Google |
Read our verdict in the software roundup.
 Explore our carefully curated directory of recommended free and open source software, covering every major software category.The directory forms part of our extensive collection of articles for Linux enthusiasts. It includes hundreds of detailed reviews, together with free and open source alternatives to proprietary software from companies such as Google, Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, IBM, Cisco, Oracle, and Autodesk. LinuxLinks also covers interesting projects worth exploring, Linux-compatible hardware, free programming books and tutorials, and much more. Know a useful free and open source Linux application that we haven’t covered? Tell us about it using our submission form. |
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.