As you may know, standard email is sent across the Internet as plain text, so that anyone with access to the Internet can read your private email and confidential documents. If you’re concerned about your email’s security and want to make sure that is read by its intended targets and absolutely no one else, this hack is for you.

In this hack, we’ll show you four easy steps to configure Mozilla Thunderbird email client to send encrypted emails. We’re going to use the Enigmail extension to provide public-key encryption extension to the Thunderbird email client.

Step 1: Setting up Thunderbird and GnuPG

If you don’t already have it, the first thing you need to do is to download and install Thunderbird. The following step is to download and install GnuPG for Windows. As of writing, the stable version of GnuPG for Windows is 1.4.7 and the stable version of Thunderbird is 2.0.

Step 2: Installing Enigmail Thunderbird Extension

Grab the installation package of Enigmail Extension by right-clicking and saving it. If you’re running Firefox, make sure to save the extension, otherwise Firefox will try to install it as a Firefox extension. In the Tools menu of Thunderbird, click on Add-ons. You should see the following window:

To install a new extension, click on the Install button and locate the Enigmail extension (XPI file) you just downloaded and click Open. Click Install Now, and you should see Enigmail extension listed in the extensions window. Restart Thunderbird to enable it.

Step 3: Configuring Enigmail

Now, it’s time to configure Enigmail to use your private/public key pair. The public key is what other use to send you encrypted emails. Any encrypted email can be decrypted only with your private key. When using Enigmail, you can import an existing key pair or generate new one.

Kay management is done using the OpenPGP Key Management window. In the OpenPGP menu, select Key Management. You should see the following window:

To generate a new key, open the Key Management window and select New Key Pair. After doing so, you should see a dialog window asking you to fill the necessary information to generate a new key pair. To add an existing key pair, in the Key Management window, from the File menu, click Import Keys from File.

Step 4: Send Encrypted Emails

Now you’re ready to send encrypted emails. If everything goes well, you should see the OpenPGP menu when composing new emails. To encrypt an email message, simply click Encrypt Mail from the OpenPGP menu. Make sure to import your friends’ public keys before sending them encrypted emails.

Reading encrypted emails is easy. When you receive an encrypted email, Thunderbird will automatically prompt you for your private key’s password. After accepting the password, it will display the email message. Enjoy!