Key Categories

Once you have a lot of keys, finding the right one takes longer than it should. A category is a label you put on keys to tidy them up, such as Work, Family, or Servers.

A category changes nothing about the keys themselves. It only changes what you see.

Not the same as a key group

A key group is a shortcut for encrypting to several people at once, and it shows up in the key list as something you can pick as a recipient.

A category never does that. It is only a way of sorting the list. See Key Group if that is what you are after.

Where to Find Them

Categories appear in two places:

• KeyPair Management window: a list down the left side. This is where you create and change them.
• Key ToolBox in the main window: a thin coloured strip. You can switch between categories here, but not edit them.

Clicking a category shows only the keys in it.

The Ready-Made Ones

Some categories are built in. They fill themselves automatically.

The KeyPair Management window has these:

• All: every key.
• Has Private Key: keys you own.
• Only Public Key: other people’s keys.
• Key Group: your key groups.
• Expiring Soon: keys that run out soon. At first that means the next 30 days; you can change it (see the tip below).
• Expired, Revoked, Disabled, No Primary Key: keys with a problem.

The Key ToolBox has a shorter list, made for picking keys:

• Default: every key you can use. Expired, revoked and disabled keys are left out.
• Key Group, Only Public Key and Has Private Key: as above.

You cannot rename or delete these.

Change what “soon” means

Open Settings, go to General, and set Warn about keys expiring within to any number of days you like.

Make Your Own

1. Open the KeyPair Management window.

2. Click the + button at the bottom of the category list, or right-click the list and choose New Category…. The New Category window opens.

3. Type a Name, such as Work Contacts. A name can be up to 64 characters. Two categories cannot have the same name, and upper and lower case count as the same.

4. Under Colour, click one of the colours. A colour no other category uses is already picked for you. For any other colour, click the last one (Custom Colour…).

   The top of the window shows how the category will look in the list.

   

5. Click Create.

You can also make a category and fill it in one go. In the KeyPair Management window, select some keys, right-click them, open the Category submenu and choose New Category…. The window then says how many of the selected keys will be added to the new category. In the main window, the Add To Category submenu does the same for one key at a time.

Changed in v2.2.4

Making or changing a category now uses one window, with the name, the colour and a preview together. It used to ask for the name and the colour in two separate small windows.

Put Keys in a Category

1. Find the key in the key list. Select several at once if you like.

2. Right-click it and open the Category submenu.

   

3. Tick the category you want.

To take a key out again, go to that category, right-click the key, open the Category submenu and choose Remove From This Category.

A key can be in as many categories as you like.

Rename, Recolour, Reorder

Right-click a category in the KeyPair Management window to find:

• Set Colour… and Reset Colour: change only the colour. These work on the built-in categories too.
• Edit Category…: change its name and colour in the same window as above. Click Save when you are done. (Before v2.2.4 this was Rename Category.) Only for your own categories.

To change the order, drag a category up or down the list. The order is remembered.

Delete Category…, also only for your own categories, removes the label only. Your keys are never touched.

Where the Favourite tab went

GpgFrontend v2.2.2 replaced the old Favourite tab with categories. Old favourites are not carried over, so make a category and put those keys back in it.

Good to Know

• Categories belong to one key database. If you use more than one, each has its own set. See Multi-Key Database.
• The search box searches inside the category you are looking at.