gpg: decryption failed: No secret key
Solution 1
I also received blank output from the same 2 commands:
gpg --list-secret-keys
gpg --list-keys
I had reason to suspect this was to do with recent changes to the ~/.gnupg/pubring.kbx
file, which lead me to run the following 2 commands to re-import missing keys:
Re-import missing secret keys:
gpg --import < ~/.gnupg/secring.gpg
Re-import missing public keys:
gpg --import < ~/.gnupg/pubring.gpg
- Documentation for above commands: https://gpgtools.tenderapp.com/kb/faq/missing-keys-after-migrating-to-gnupg-22#missing-secret-key-s-and-or-public-keys
- Broken
pubring.kbx
: https://gpgtools.tenderapp.com/discussions/nightly/1415-gpg-keychain-broken-pubringkbx-file
Solution 2
This message can also happen if your pinentry program isn't working properly, and thus gpg can't get the passphrase to unlock the decryption key. This has happened to me a couple of times. If this is the case, gpg -d -v
will appear to select the correct key and then just hang for a while before giving up. This is it waiting for the pinentry that never actually returns.
The steps depend on your specific environment, but checking (or creating) the pinentry-program
option in ~/.gnupg/gpg-agent.conf
is a good place to start. In my case (on OS X with Homebrew-installed gpg
and pinentry-mac
) I had to create that file with the following contents:
pinentry-program /usr/local/bin/pinentry-mac
And then run gpgconf --kill gpg-agent
to reload the configuration (gpg-agent
should automatically restart).
You will likely need to adjust the path above for whatever your preferred pinentry program is. locate pinentry
may be helpful to find what options you have installed, or which your-pinentry-program-here
will tell you the full path if you already know the name.
Solution 3
Very short version: you can't decrypt without the secret key.
GnuPG asks for the secret key (often used as synonym for private key if you read that somewhere), so the message was encrypted using public/private key cryptography. You cannot decrypt the message using the public key, that's the basic principle behind public/private key cryptography. Secret keys can be protected with a passphrase, that's why you might have a passphrase (although you miss the key).
Ask for the private key if you are required to decrypt the message, or ask the sender to encrypt using symmetric cryptography and share the passphrase with you.
Solution 4
I had the same error but with a different solution to it, this was on OSX but I assume it will be similar on others.
The gpg-agent
seemed to be the culprit as I realised that I never got the pinentry
question for one of my keys.
Killing it with gpgconf --kill gpg-agent
solved that. And with the first call that needs it the gpg-agent will start automatically. And indeed the pinentry appeared and all was fine again.
Solution 5
In my case my gpg key had password and when I entered git-crypt unlock
in vscode terminal which had a limited width and height it outputs
gpg: decryption failed: No secret key
git-crypt: GPG error: Failed to decrypt
But when I try the same command on a full terminal windows it works like charm and prompts for getting password and so on.
Mangesh Sathe
PHP, MySql developer with 8+years of experience. CodeIgniter, jQuery, javascript, HTML, CSS, Drupal 8, iOS and Android apps web service development, LAMP/WAMP.
Updated on February 11, 2022Comments
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Mangesh Sathe about 2 years
I am not able to decrypt my file without secret key. I know this question is asked on this before, solutions on this question did not help me.
This is my problem's scenario. This error I receive on command prompt while using --decrypt command.
gpg: decryption failed: No secret key
I have public key and a passphrase with me. I have used following commands to check if there is secret key or not.
• gpg --list-secret-keys
• gpg --list-keys
Both the above commands returned blank result(no error). so I decided to import public key with --import .
• gpg --import "C:\PATH\TO_MY_PUBLIC_KEY"
After --import command I can see public is imported. I could not find the way to deal with secret key. Is there any way I can find secret key or create new secret key.
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rwolst about 4 yearsAfter upgrading Ubuntu from
16.04
to18.04
, I was now missing my secret keys. Re-importing using this method worked for me. -
Gwyneth Llewelyn about 3 yearsmacOS Big Sur user here, also using Homebrew. I was completely clueless about all the above. I guess I might have upgraded gpg via Homebrew and completely forgot to check if the
gpg-agent
configuration needed any changes... in any case, I wouldn't have the slightest idea where and what to change. Thank you! -
alper almost 3 years` ~/.gnupg/secring.gpg` is empty
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don bright over 2 yearsno such thing as secring.gpg or pubring.gpg on mine. is it a version thing?
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Cyril Chaboisseau over 2 yearsI had the same problem when running the
gpg --decrypt...
command from a remote/ssh tmux screen