In this article we’ll go over the process of exporting your PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) keys from one computer to another, in this case we’ll be exporting the key from an Ubuntu machine to a windows machine there are several programs you’ll need, or I assume you already have, like: Gnupg for Linux and Windows, also in my case I use Enigmail which is a Thunderbird addon, and uses the OpenPGP standard for encryption and authentication, and yes you should already have created your original key. See the links at the end of this articles for important sites where you can get this applications.

GnuPG uses public-key cryptography so that users may communicate securely. In a public-key system, each user has a pair of keys consisting of a private key and a public key. A user’s private key is kept secret; it need never be revealed. The public key may be given to anyone with whom the user wants to communicate

Important points:

1- After you’re finished importing your key is essential that you do not leave traces of the private key as anyone could use it
2- you should create a revocation certificate in case your key becomes compromised or you loose it

Exporting your GPG key:

1- Drop to a shell and type gpg –list-secret-keys to list all your keys.

2- To export the key to a asc file type gpg –export-secret-keys -o filename.asc username@somedomain.com where username@somedomain.com is the email you use when generated the key

3- Copy the filename.asc to your windows machine and the type gpg –import filename.asc

4- and finally to list the key type gpg –list-secret-keys. the newly imported key should display now.

Important links:

GnuPG GnuPG for LInux
GnuPG4win ( GnuPG for windows )
Enigmail addon for Thunderbird