How To Send Encrypted Emails Using Gmail And Outlook?

Security is one of the major concerns of all. Whether it is social media or e-mails, the threat to privacy remains stagnant over the web. Therefore, it is important to encrypt emails to keep them safe from notorious cybercriminals.

Since sending emails is our usual task, we must pay attention and keep our attachments and emails encrypted. To do the same, there are various ways such as sending mails using apps like ProtonMail that ensures emails you’re sending are encrypted. But do you know how to send secure emails in Outlook or Gmail?

Here’s a brief guide that will tell you about the most efficient ways to send encrypted emails.

How To Send A Secure Email In Outlook?

Using Outlook for your daily official mails? You can check out the amazing option that allows you for S/MIME encryption. It helps in keeping your sensitive data private and confidential without losing its worth. The process is a bit complicated, but you can give it a try with the steps below to send encrypted email in Outlook :

IMPORTANT: You need administrative permissions to encrypt emails in Outlook. Contact your administrator for the same.

• The first step will be to get a digital certificate from your organization’s admin.
• Create a new message, click on three-dots for more options, and choose ‘Message Options’.
• Now, select ‘Encrypt this message (S/MIME).’ Click Run to install the required software.
• Open the gear menu tab and choose Encrypt contents and attachment of all messages I send’.

To turn off encryption, go on a particular message, from three-dots select ‘Message Options’ and now, deselect Encrypt this message (S/MIME).

For Newer versions you can try the steps below:

• Go to File menu, select Options > Trust Center > Trust Center Settings.

• In the left pane, select Email Security.
• Under Encrypted email, choose Settings.

• Under Certificates and Algorithms, click Choose and select the S/MIME certificate and choose OK.

For an Office Insider with Office 365 subscription, here’s what is new to you:

• In an email message, choose Options, select Encrypt and pick Encrypt with S/MIME option from the drop-down,
• You’ll see an Encrypt with S/MIME if you have an S/MIME certificate installed on your computer.
• Finish composing your email and then choose to Send.

How To Send A Secure Email In Gmail?

To send encrypted emails through Gmail, you need to have an Administrator account. This will open Google Admin console. Further to this, you can follow the steps below to encrypt emails you send.

• Open Google, go to Apps.
• Now locate G Suite, then Gmail.
• In Gmail go to User Settings.
• Scroll down to the S/MIME tab and check ‘Enable S/MIME encryption for sending and receiving emails’.
• Log out and log back into Gmail to see the new setting enabled.
• Now, go to Settings > Accounts and then edit ‘Send mail as’ to upload a certificate that adheres to all the current cryptographic standards.
• Now, exchange keys with each of your recipients and send an S/MIME-signed message with a signature that includes your public key.

Other Ways To Send Encrypted Emails

As stated above, you can choose to switch email service provider from Gmail and Outlook to either Tutanota or ProtonMail to ensure sending emails securely. In case, you are not able to turn on encryption, then you can hit a trial on some of the free ways to send encrypted email and secure messages.

Wrapping up:

Email encryption is a prominent tactic to ensure the information sent and received via emails from either of the platforms; Gmail or Outlook is secure and can cause no harm to your system’s confidential information.

Do you use encryption for emails? Let us know in the comments below.

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