Encrypt with own public key or symmetric key

General
1

Hi!

I know normally people sending you data encrypt it with your pub key and you decrypt it with your priv key.

But what if you want to encrypt some data for private use?

What is considered better practice:

  1. encrypt using a symmetric key?

  2. encrypt using your own public key?

Thanks :slight_smile:

2

Encrypting data with its own key is common practice. It removes the necessity for yet another password, which may be unsafe and needs to be remembered or stored elsewhere.

3

Thanks. Is it needed to export the pub key to a file or can it be done from the command line without exporting the pub key first?

4

Okay, for private keys specifically, encrypting them symmetrically with a passphrase is usually the way to go (unless you have some other OpenPGP key to encrypt it with), which is also often the default behaviour when exporting private keys.

5

You do not need to export your public key to encrypt for yourself.