Instructions for exporting/importing (backup/restore) GPG keys

Every so often I have to restore my gpg keys and I'm never sure how best to do it. So, I've spent some time playing around with the various ways to export/import (backup/restore) keys.

Method 1

Backup the public and secret keyrings and trust database

cp ~/.gnupg/pubring.gpg /path/to/backups/
cp ~/.gnupg/secring.gpg /path/to/backups/
cp ~/.gnupg/trustdb.gpg /path/to/backups/
# or, instead of backing up trustdb...
gpg --export-ownertrust > chrisroos-ownertrust-gpg.txt

NOTE The GPG manual suggests exporting the ownertrust instead of backing up the trustdb, although it doesn't explain why.

Restore the public and secret keyrings and trust database

cp /path/to/backups/*.gpg ~/.gnupg/
# or, if you exported the ownertrust
gpg --import-ownertrust chrisroos-ownertrust-gpg.txt

Method 2

This only really works if you don't mind losing any other keys (than your own).

Export public and secret key and ownertrust

gpg -a --export [email protected] > chrisroos-public-gpg.key
gpg -a --export-secret-keys [email protected] > chrisroos-secret-gpg.key
gpg --export-ownertrust > chrisroos-ownertrust-gpg.txt

Import secret key (which contains the public key) and ownertrust

gpg --import chrisroos-secret-gpg.key
gpg --import-ownertrust chrisroos-ownertrust-gpg.txt

If error with pinentry ~/.gnupg/gpg.conf pinentry-mode loopback