Release Information

Release Notes

We release new versions of GnuPG Desktop® over time which fix bugs, improve the user interface and sometimes also offer new functions.

Please note that the 4th digit of the version number does not indicate any functional changes, but merely reflects a change in the standard or customer-specific configuration. Versions not mentioned were created for testing purposes only and were not released to customers.

Notes in brackets are either error reports (e.g. T2002) or notes on changes to the source code (commits). These clues can be searched for on our public development platform dev.gnupg.org.

Version 5.0.2 released 2026-03-17

This ist the first GnuPG Desktop version for the 5.x.x series. GnuPG Desktop has the same version numbers as Gpg4win, but not all releases were build for GnuPG Desktop.

For all changes see the change log of Gpg4win. Here are the most important ones:

Security Issues

The following security issues have been fixed since the release 4.3.0:

  • GpgOL: A security bug which could result in no warning shown to the user when a signed mail contained a not signed attachment after a signed one. (T8110)
  • Kleopatra: A security bug in the supporting library libpng.
  • GnuPG: Theoretical downgrade of key signatures to SHA1 (T7904).
  • GnuPG: Possible memory access violation (T7906).
  • GpgOL: Possible plaintext leak to the Exchange server in read-as-plain mode. (T7858)
  • Okular: Several bugs in the poppler backend and a security bug in a supporting library (CVE-2025-27363)

System Requirements

GnuPG Desktop is now built natively for 64-Bit Windows, this changes the path to the installation directory and Registry keys. Therefore Windows 32-Bit versions are no longer supported. Due to the upgrade to the Qt 6 library only Windows 10 (1809 or later) and Windows 11 are supported any more.

Crypto Backend GnuPG

  • Change to the now stable branch 2.5. of GnuPG with support for Post Quantum Cryptography.

GUI (Kleopatra)

  • Change to Qt 6.10.1 and KDE Frameworks 6.20. This upgrade from Qt 5 brings many improvements, including better dark mode support.
  • The Kleopatra icon is now blue instead of red.
  • Certificates can now be "disabled", which removes them from the standard view filters and prevents their usage for encryption and signing, while keeping them at hand for signature verification and decryption.
  • New key creation option "for usage in teams" and corresponding option for saving "team keys". This creates a key with subkeys for signing and encryption, allowing to share only one or both in a team. See Working in Teams for more information.
  • Adding subkeys and ADSKs is now possible.
  • The notepad was redesigned and now opens in separate windows.
  • Many accessibility and UX improvements.

PDF-Viewer (Okular - GnuPG edition)

  • OpenPGP signature support is now available.
  • The signature workflow is improved.
  • Better visual representation of signatures.

Outlook Add-In (GgpOL)

Several bug fixes.

New Outlook Add-In (GpgOL/Web)

Introduction of the new GpgOL/Web add-in, it is still experimental.

It was designed and implemented from scratch to support the new, web-based Outlook. This add-in uses a locally running service to fetch and send encrypted messages from/to Outlook. Therefore unencrypted content does not leave the local operating system and is not synced to the cloud.

This add-in is still in development and missing features. There may be disruptive changes.

Version 4.3.0 released 2024-02-02

  • Now uses GnuPG 2.4 with many new features compared to GnuPG 2.2.
  • Multi card reader and token support.
  • Support for smartcards and tokens implementing the PIV standard.
  • Support for a faster encryption modus (OCB).
  • Faster access to keys in larger keyrings due to the use of the new keyboxd system.
  • A new mail viewer mode has been added, allowing crypto mails received by mail clients without PGP/MIME or S/MIME support to be decrypted. This means that you can open an SMIME.p7m file or openpgp-encrypted-message.asc attachment with Kleopatra, and it will be displayed as a mail. [T6199]
  • Inclusion of the Okular PDF Viewer in a special GnuPG Edition. This edition provides the ability to sign and verify documents with a qualified electronic signature (QES,EIDAS) and is optimized to be lightweight and to provide as little attack surface as possible. It does not support any active content like JavaScript or media files in PDF documents. It should therefore be more suitable in high security environments than most other PDF Viewers. Note that Okular is not installed by default. Its installation can be selected in the advanced installer dialog.

Version 3.1.26 released 2022-12-14

  • This is the first released version of GnUPG Desktop which is, like GnuPG VS-Desktop, based on GnuPG 2.2.
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