Encrypting Email in Outlook

  • Updated

What this article covers

When you need to protect the privacy of an email message, encrypt it. Encrypting an email message in Outlook means it's converted from readable plain text into scrambled cipher text. Only the recipient who has the private key that matches the public key used to encrypt the message can decipher the message for reading. Any recipient without the corresponding private key sees indecipherable text.

In this article, the following will be covered:

Protection Levels (Permissions)

You can choose from several different protection levels (also referred to as permissions) when protecting your email. 

Encrypt: Locked so that only the recipient can read the email.
Do not forward: Does not enable the recipient to forward the email.
Florida Gulf Coast University - Confidential: Only for recipients inside the university to read, but can share or copy.
Florida Gulf Coast University - Confidential View Only: Only for recipients inside the university to read and cannot share or copy.
Restricted: Only certain people can open the email.

Encrypting Email (Desktop Classic)

  1. In an email message, select Options > Encrypt.
  2. Choose the protection option that has the restrictions you'd like to enforce.
  3. Finish composing your email and then select Send.

Encrypting Email (Desktop New)

  1. Go to the top of the message and select Options > Outlook - encrypt icon new.PNG Lock icon drop-down arrow.
  2. Choose the protection option that has the restrictions you'd like to enforce.

    Note: Once encryption is turned on, you can access the Change permissions button for additional protection options.
    Outlook - encrypt change permissions button.PNG
  3. If you encrypt an outgoing message and Outlook on the web can't verify that all recipients can decrypt the message, you'll see a notice warning you which recipients might not be able to read the encrypted message. You can send the message anyway, remove those recipients, or retry to check again.
  4. Finish composing your email and then select Send.

Encrypting Email (Web)

  1. Go to the top of the message and select Options > Outlook - encrypt icon new.PNG Lock icon drop-down arrow.
  2. Choose the protection option that has the restrictions you'd like to enforce. 

    Note: Once encryption is turned on, you can access the Change permissions button for additional protection options.
    Outlook - encrypt change permissions button.PNG
  3. If you encrypt an outgoing message and Outlook on the web can't verify that all recipients can decrypt the message, you'll see a notice warning you which recipients might not be able to read the encrypted message. You can send the message anyway, remove those recipients, or retry to check again.
  4. Finish composing your email and then select Send.

Opening Encrypted Email

If you receive an email that has been encrypted or has protections applied, you may need to take extra steps to open or reply to it. If you open the message in most versions of Outlook, including Outlook mobile and Outlook on the web, you may not need to do anything different.

Ways to identify encrypted or protected emails

Outlook - encrypted message.PNG
A lock icon on the incoming mail can suggest the 
email is encrypted

 

Outlook - encrypted and protected.PNG

Outlook protected messages have a banner at the top of the messge that informs you of restrictions. Outlook should open the message like normal. 

 

View and reply to a Microsoft 365 encrypted message

If you're in a Microsoft 365 organization, you can read messages encrypted with the encrypt-only or do-not-forward policies or custom protection templates. You won't be able to reply if the sender applied a Do Not Reply policy to it.

  1. Choose Reply or Reply All.
  2. On the page that appears, type a reply and choose Send. An encrypted copy of your reply message is sent to you.

View and reply to an S/MIME encrypted message in Outlook

A lock icon Outlook - lock icon.PNG on the incoming mail will suggest email is encrypted. If S/MIME encrypted, Outlook will check whether there is a certificate available on your computer. You might have to give access to the Keystore if required.

If there is a certificate available, the message will be decrypted when you open it. If your certificate is stored on a smart card, you'll be prompted to insert the smart card to read the message. Your smart card might also require a PIN to access the certificate. 

Note: If you're using Outlook on desktop, on the web, or Outlook mobile, you'll have to open the message in a new window to read it. Conversation view does not support viewing encrypted messages.

 

 

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