

It's available only for paid Google Workspace Suite accounts, so if you're using a regular free Gmail account, it doesn't apply to you.įor folks with enterprise-level Workspace setups, though, S/MIME (which may or may not have been invented by a mime) allows emails to be encrypted with user-specific keys so that they remain protected during delivery and can be decrypted only by the intended recipient.

Gmail encryption: A next-level optionīeyond that basic form of encryption, Gmail supports an enhanced standard known as S/MIME - or Secure/Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (gesundheit!). With paid Google Workspace accounts, administrators can opt to allow only messages with TLS encryption to be sent or received - though that'd come with its own set of undesirable consequences, as you could imagine, in terms of having your outgoing messages bounce or having certain incoming messages never reach your inbox. If the person with whom you're corresponding is using a mail server that doesn't support TLS, meanwhile, messages won't be encrypted at all. And if you'd rather not have those smart suggestion features in the picture, by the way, you can always turn them off in your account - though that won't have any direct effect on the Gmail encryption approach or when and how that extra layer of security is applied.)

(Google used to scan messages for ad targeting, too, but it stopped doing that in 2017.

Google itself, for instance, has the ability to see messages associated with your account, which is what allows the company to scan your email for potential spam and phishing attacks - and also to offer advanced features like Smart Reply, which suggests responses based on an email's contents. It doesn't, however, guarantee that the message will remain private or available only to the intended recipient once it reaches the destination mail server. What that basically means is that it'll be incredibly difficult for anyone to look at a message while it's en route from point A to point B. As long as the person with whom you're emailing is also using a mail service that also supports TLS - which most major mail providers do - all messages you send through Gmail will be encrypted in this manner. Google's standard method of Gmail encryption is something called TLS, or Transport Layer Security. Gmail encryption: How Google protects most messages
