HOWTO: Disable GPG agent password dialog (pinentry)

[mwjones]

Say you want to symmetrically encrypt a file with GPG:

gpg -c foobar.txt

You have already decided on a nice long passphrase and have it copied to the keyboard, when a dialog window pops up asking for the passphrase, but won't allow it to be pasted in.

The fix is simple:

1. Open ~/.gnupg/gpg.conf in your favorite editor
2. Comment the use-agent line (prefix it with #)
3. Kill off the gpg-agent service (sudo killall -9 gpg-agent)

Now you will be prompted at the shell for the passphrase whenever you use gpg -c. This also helps for scripts.

[js31]

Thank you!

In case others search for this > command where it's useful (non-interactive file encryption via gpg/command line):

gpg --batch --yes --passphrase secret -c file