How to Encrypt Emails in Microsoft Outlook 2010 & 2013

Emails are one of the most crucial business entity and misbehaving with it can lead any firm to the extent of risk (both legal and financial level). So, keeping emails more secure and confidential in Microsoft Outlook should be prime concern for users as well as any individual person if they have an internal communication structure using MS-Outlook.

Hence, Outlook deals with such things and provides an inbuilt feature called “Encryption” to its users so that they can make emails communication private. Email security is important as it protects data from being hacked, attacked, phished, and from other harmful scams over the internet.

So, if you are thinking about creating an email account with the motive of exchanging confidential and sensitive data to another party, then the utilization of “Encryption” can prove beneficial.

What is the meaning of Encrypting Emails especially in Outlook?

I am quite aware that the question which most bothers you is “What is Encryption?”. For a casual Outlook user, it could be difficult to understand the term Encryption.

So let’s first understand the term Encryption in simple words:

Encryption is a methodology to convert or code data as password protected or a secure form of structure modification or applying a digital password upon it. By using Encryption on Outlook emails, you can convert messages from, a readable form to a scrambled structure. Such emails can only be accessed or encrypted by a recipient having the respective password or private key. The encryption of emails helps establish a user to user communication, means no-one sneak in and read or edit the emails.

In Outlook, this task is executed by using the “Digital Signature” which allows a user to access emails.

Must Read: How to Setup Custom Domain Email on Outlook.com

How to Apply Encryption on MS-Outlook Emails

Applying encryption or password protection on emails while working with Microsoft Outlook is thoroughly easy. But, there is a need to follow a set of instructions to accomplish this task.

Encryption of Single Email:
1.) Start composing a new email and go to the “Option” tab.

2.) Now click on “More Option” button under the “Option” tab.

3.) A new window will appear on the screen, where you need to click on “Security Settings” button.

4.) Choose the “Encrypt message contents and attachments” check box and click on “Ok” to do further activities on encrypted emails.

Encryption of All Outgoing Emails:

1.) Go to “Options” by clicking on “File” tab.

2.) Make a click on the “Options” tab and go to “Trust Center” tab.

3.) After reaching on the “Trust Center” window, move cursor on the “Trust Center Settings” button and apply a click.

4.) Now, you will see another window which shows various entities relevant to security under the encrypted e-mail section. Choose the “Encrypt contents and attachments for outgoing messages” option from it.

6.) To do more changes or apply additional settings on the encryption, click on “Settings” button and start performing other required changes.

In Conclusion:
Initializing the security by encrypting emails or message in Microsoft Outlook increases message authentication. So, always encrypt emails before sharing any important emails.

Must Read: How to enable 2-step authentication for YahooMail, Gmail and Outlook

This is a guest post by Peter Baris. He is the author of MS Outlook Tools, Peter has an experience of more than 20 years in the IT industry. He is now working with an expert data recovery firm. Having quality expertise in the Office products, especially in Microsoft Outlook he loves to solve user queries by providing excellently suitable solution.