How to retrieve private key from a profile [export from advanced menu gone]

[dcuser11]

This apparently was removed at some point between after version 2.11.

There no longer is an entry to export keys in the advanced menu.

Is there a way to export the keys?

Thanks!

[r10s]

No. there is no way to export keys from the UI.

see FAQ for details and reasoning:

Can I reuse my existing private key? - Delta Chat: FAQ

[dcuser11]

I have already read that. Sad to hear confirmation, though.

I have adapted myself to all the braking changes since version 2, and convinced the people I dragged to DC over the years to do the same.

Even though I do not share the same opinion in many of this changes, I understand and respect the reasons why you made them.

In this case I do not understand the reasons.

Its logical to not allow to import keys, that would be a security and development nightmare. But how can exporting keys be anything like that?

You are just depriving the user of the freedom to decrypt their mailbox content by any other means, should DC disappear or not be available. Or simpler, one can no longer backup certain emails should one chooses to do so (email format has certain “legal” value, much more than a screenshot or a database of a not very known app). Etc.

Thanks for the info and confirmation.

I’ll keep pushing for DC adoption, but this kind of step really don’t help at all.

[Minim]

You can dig into the SQL database to get the keys. This is is not encouraged.

[link2xt]

@dcuser11

Its logical to not allow to import keys, that would be a security and development nightmare. But how can exporting keys be anything like that?

On Android it was removed because it exported the keys outside the application and into Downloads folder. We kept it on Desktop for some time mostly because desktop operating systems are bad at sandboxing anyway, it was removed later: cleanup: remove outdated options and experiments · Issue #5773 · deltachat/deltachat-desktop · GitHub

FAQ already explains where to get the key if you really need to, and it seems I even made a guide with screenshots at some point linked above.

Regarding backing up messages as raw emails and an asymmetric key for decryption, it can work now, but long term we want to have “forward secrecy” and being able to archive messages by keeping the copies of encrypted messages as is without archiving session keys, is the opposite of this goal.

@dcuser11

email format has certain “legal” value, much more than a screenshot or a database of a not very known app

For emails that are legally important such as contracts and invoices I’d just send an email with a normal email client and not Delta Chat.

[dcuser11]

Thanks for the tip and the warning!

It’s certainly easier than installing a previous temporary version and opening a copy of the profile with it.

[dcuser11]

Thanks for the explanation. I now understand why you are making this move.

It will be easier to explain the changes to other people.

Thanks again!

[Minim]

@link2xt

Regarding backing up messages as raw emails and an asymmetric key for decryption, it can work now, but long term we want to have “forward secrecy” and being able to archive messages by keeping the copies of encrypted messages as is without archiving session keys, is the opposite of this goal.

I would really appreciate it if exports of a full chat history were added before session keys are added (something like Pidgin’s flat-file export). It would avoid Deltachat being a datatrap.

There are plenty of conversations that can be deleted, but if, say, we are doing a remote debug, I want to keep a record of what the problem was and how we fixed it, because I will forget.

[dcuser11]

After updating to version 2.43.0 I noticed several emails for which thunderbird shows empty content and are not identified as encypted. K9 directly presents a decryption error for these mails. These mails have hidden subject, hidden recipients, and contain an encrypted block in the body.

I wonder if I have some error or corruption in my profiles or if this is due to some new gpg version in latest DC.

Also, DC stopped adding messages to DeltaChat folder after the update, respecting the setting change I had made several weeks before installing version 2.43.0.

[Minim]

DC does not use GPG but OpenPGP. There is a mess of a dispute in the background here, but this may be the source of your compatibility problems.

[link2xt]

The messages are likely sync messages, e.g. if you pin a chat they are sent. As for not being able to decrypt them, the reason is likely that Thunderbird still does not support SEIPDv2:

Don't remove the option “Move automatically to DeltaChat Folder"!

The mails you cannot decrypt are probably messages sent to self that are encrypted using SEIPDv2. The issue about supporting SEIPDv2 in RNP, the library used by Thunderbird, is at Implement support for v2 SEIPD packet. · Issue #1770 · rnpgp/rnp · GitHub The To field can always be completely fake, checking the To field does not tell you what actual recipients are. This is how Bcc works, by sending messages to additional recipients not included in the To field. But it can also be the other way …

You can try to decrypt with GopenPGP or rPGP or Sequoia PGP: OpenPGP interoperability test suite

[dcuser11]

Actually thunderbird uses OpenPGP, I haven’t even looked at that since the first versions of enigmail…

[dcuser11]

@link2xt

The messages are likely sync messages, e.g. if you pin a chat they are sent. As for not being able to decrypt them, the reason is likely that Thunderbird still does not support SEIPDv2:

I am sure they are sync messages, as I generated some on purpose now.

Nothing to worry then, if it’s just thunderbird is behind in OpenPGP version.

Thanks for the confirmation.

@link2xt

You can try to decrypt with GopenPGP or rPGP or Sequoia PGP: OpenPGP interoperability test suite

Thanks for the tips.