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Outlook provides you with a built-in service that allows you to encrypt emails in Outlook. It ensures that your messages can’t be forwarded and will be sent to the intended recipient. Message encryption is helpful when you need to send sensitive information and these messages can only be read by the recipient. It prevents others from the reading content of the message. It also prevents your message from being forwarded. 

When you are a user of office 365, email encryption becomes extremely easy. You can use it even without installing any kind of certificate from Outlook to any recipient. Many other options to secure your email in Outlook use certificates or a third-party add-in to send an encrypted message. 

In the article, you will learn how to encrypt email in outlook in many ways, along with some crucial information about email encryption. 

Also Check, Why: Outlook keeps asking for password

 

Options for Email Encryption

There are three ways to secure your email from Outlook. Each of them offers you some amazing advantages and some of them are extremely easy to set up. 

Message Encryption in Office 365: Message encryption in office 365 is easy to use and doesn’t require installing certificates. It allows you to send messages to any email client. It just needs a couple of steps to open the email. 

Encryption Based on Certificate: In this type of encryption, both the sender and recipient need to have a public certificate to encrypt and decrypt the email. It is a bit tougher to install, but ultimately it is easier to use at the end if you are sending a large number of emails. 

Outlook Add-In: With outlook add-ins, you can send encrypted emails easily without office 365. 

 

Methods to Encrypt Email in Outlook

Before moving on to the steps of how to encrypt email in outlook make sure that you have the following prerequisites: 

• Make sure that you have a 365 subscription whether it be a personal, family, or corporate package. 
• Now download and install the official app of Outlook from the official website. 

Different methods to encrypt email in Outlook are mentioned below.

 

1. Encrypt Email in Outlook on Desktop

• First of all, launch the Outlook application and log in to your Microsoft or Outlook account. 
• Now click on the New Email option and compose a new email. 

• After this, a new separate window will open which is a message composer window. 
• In this window click on the options tab visible at the top middle of the screen. 
• Now the next step is to encrypt the email. 
• Here, you need to select the options and then click on encrypt. It is possible to move the encrypt button on the menu of the message. This will save a step for you. 

The options provided to you by Outlook to encrypt your mail are mentioned below: 

1. 1. Encrypt only- this option only encrypts your email without any additional permissions.
   2. Do not Forward- with this option recipients can only read the message but they cannot forward, print, or copy it. On the other hand, you have all the access and permissions to the message. 
   3. Confidential- with this option you can protect your email and allow all the employees full permission but you can track the data and revoke the content. 
   4. Highly confidential- This allows all the employees to view, edit and reply permissions to this content but also you can track and revoke. 

• You can select one of the above-mentioned options according to your choice and need. 
• Now you will see an encryption note above the address field of that email and you can send the email knowing that it is fully protected. 

 

2. Encrypt Email with Outlook on the Web

Encrypting email in outlook on the web is just similar to using it on the desktop. Here are the steps to teach you how to encrypt Outlook email on the web: 

• First of all, launch your favorite web browser and search outlook.com. Now login to your Microsoft account with your credentials. 
• Now, compose an email by clicking on the new message button visible on the top left corner of the screen. 

• Then fill in your details like the email address of the recipient and body of the email and then at the top of the message editor click on the encrypt link option. 

• Here you will see a popup message will appear on the screen to ask permission to modify the email. Click on the change permission link. 

• Click on the drop-down box from the popup and choose the permission set for your email then tap ok. 

• No, you can send the encrypted email safely. 

 

3. Encrypt Email in Outlook Using the Certificate

The most amazing benefit of using certificates is you can view the message normally but when you send the message encrypted with a certificate your recipient also has to have the certificate.

1. First of all, to set up a certificate you need to buy it online. The cost of the certificate is between $30 to $250 per year according to your requirements. You need to add the certificate on your Outlook and then send each other a signed email first. 
2. With the signed email you automatically receive the public key of each other which allows you to encrypt the mail with the public key of the recipient. Then the message will only be decrypted when both the parties have matching certificates installed. 
3. In case of decrypting the email on the phone, you first need to install the certificate on your phone as well. 
4. Certificates are considered secure once properly installed. It allows you to receive the mail because the recipient needs to have a certificate before you can send an email. 

Also Check, How to Fix: Outlook Certificate Error

 

4. Encrypt Email in Outlook Using Third-Party Add-ins

What would you do to send an encrypted email when you don’t have a subscription to office 365? Here the third-party add-ins come into play. These third-party add-ins do utmost work like the Office 365 message encryption service.

You can use the Encyro plugin to send the encrypted email safely. The recipient receives the email just like any other mail through a link. Anybody with this link can view the mail. But the link itself stays valid for a couple of days, which makes it more secure. 

The most mesmerizing advantage of this method is that the recipient does not need to perform multiple steps to read the encrypted message. 

Also Check: How To Download Emails From Outlook?

 

How to Read Encrypted Email in Outlook

With the above steps, you have already learned how to send an encrypted email with Outlook but that’s only one side of the coin. Now you also need to learn to read the emails which are sent to you by somebody else with encryption. 

 

1. Email Sent From Office 365

When you get an email from someone who is using office 365 you will see a padlock next to the message you receive. This padlock on the email indicates it was encrypted and sent through another office 365 user. You can simply open it to decrypt the email.

 

2. Email Sent From Other Email Provider

If you get an email sent to office 365 using Outlook the decryption will be the same as the decryption of office 365. 

If you have received an email encrypted from a Gmail account you will get the instruction with the email to view the email content. 

To check the email encryption details you can click on the padlock icon on the right corner of the email.

With this, you can see the message security property that the email was encrypted and signed.

Also Check:- How to refresh outlook

 

Manually Decrypt Email with ProtonMail

• Receiving encrypted email usually comes with the steps to decrypt it. These steps depend upon the email provider of the sender used to send the encrypted email. 
• ProtonMail is one of the most popular secure email clients that can send encrypted emails to your Outlook inbox. If you have received an email encrypted with ProtonMail follow the below returns steps to decrypt it: 

• First, launch the Outlook app or open it on the browser then search outlook.com and login into your account using your credentials. 
• Now find the proton mail encrypted email inside your inbox and click on the View Secure Message button. With this, your web browser will open a new tab and you will find the ProtonMail decryption page. 
• Now you will see a form asking you to type the password that the sender has sent you to decrypt the mail. Type that password and then click on the Decrypt button. 

• After decrypting the message successfully you will see a page of ProtonMail that lets you read the email encrypted with ProtonMail on your browser. 

Note- your access to the content of the email is temporary hence when you need to read the message again you have to repeat the process.

 

Final Words

We hope that you have successfully learned how to encrypt email in outlook and decrypt the encrypted email successfully. If you find any issue while performing the process feel free to contact our Outlook experts and get assistance.