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Discover how Gmail keeps your account & emails encrypted, private and under your control with the largest secure email service in the world.
- Google Support
Gmail uses TLS by default to encrypt the connection when...
- Learn about Gmail Client-side encryption
With Gmail Client-side encryption (CSE), you can strengthen...
- Google Support
Gmail works hard to protect your inbox from spam, phishing, and malware. Learn more about how email security and privacy settings keep you safe.
- Overview
- Check if a message you're sending is encrypted
- Check if a message you received is encrypted
- What the encryption icons mean
- I see the red lock icon
- Learn more about encryption
S/MIME is used to support enhanced encryption in transit, and automatically encrypts your outgoing emails if it can.
Important: These steps only work if you have S/MIME enabled on your account.
1. Start composing a message.
2. Add recipients to the "To" field.
3. To the right of your recipients, you'll see a lock icon that shows the level of encryption that is supported by your message's recipients. If there are multiple users with various encryption levels, the icon will show the lowest encryption status.
4. To change your S/MIME settings or learn more about your recipient's level of encryption, click the lock, then View details.
1. Open a message.
2. On an Android device: Tap View details View security details.
On an iPhone or iPad: Tap View details.
3. You'll see a colored lock icon that shows you what level of encryption was used to send the message.
When you're sending or receiving messages, you can see the level of encryption a message has. The color of the icon will change based on the level of encryption.
• Green (S/MIME enhanced encryption) . Suitable for your most sensitive information. S/MIME encrypts all outgoing messages if we have the recipient's public key. Only the recipient with the corresponding private key can decrypt this message.
• Gray (TLS - standard encryption) . Suitable for most messages. TLS (Transport Layer Security) is used for messages exchanged with other email services who don't support S/MIME.
• Tip: TLS support is not guaranteed. Support is inferred from past communications with the email service.
If you're writing a message and see the red lock icon, consider removing these addresses or deleting the confidential information. To see which address is unencrypted, click View Details.
If you received a message with the red lock icon and the message contained particularly sensitive content, let the sender know and they can contact their email service provider.
Why some emails might not be encrypted
If the person you’re emailing is using an email service that doesn’t encrypt all messages using S/MIME or TLS, their emails might not be secure. However, messages are encrypted in S/MIME whenever possible.
For S/MIME to work, to either sign or receive S/MIME encrypted mail, a user must have a valid S/MIME cert from a trusted root.
S/MIME (enhanced encryption)
S/MIME is a long standing protocol which allows encrypted and signed messages to be sent using standard mail delivery SMTP.
It uses public key cryptography to:
How Gmail protects your privacy & keeps you in control. Keeping you safe online means protecting your information and respecting your privacy. That’s why, in every product we make, we focus on...
With Gmail Client-side encryption (CSE), you can strengthen the confidentiality of your sensitive or regulated data content by having the encryption handled in your browser before any data...
Jul 7, 2022 · Gmail is encrypted with TLS — Transport Layer Security — while transferring your data, and it protects your emails at rest with industry-standard 128-bit encryption. While it’s better than no protection at all, we recommend learning how to encrypt Gmail with stronger encryption than it provides.
Apr 2, 2024 · With Transport Layer Security (TLS), email content will remain encrypted regardless of what email provider the recipient uses. Two-step verification will also be the default for Gmail.
