Keybase.io PGP key export

July 8, 2025

Public PGP IDs can help verify author identity of Git commits, social media, website, etc. A popular free service to share PGP IDs is Keybase.io. Below we demonstrate exporting Keybase.io PGP keys with the keybase.io client.

Setup GPG on the laptop:

Linux: apt install gnupg
macOS: brew install gnupg keybase
Windows: winget install GnuPG.Gpg4win Keybase.Keybase

Export Keybase.io public & private key and import into GPG:

keybase pgp export | gpg --import

keybase pgp export --secret | gpg --pinentry-mode=loopback --allow-secret-key --import

Verify PGP key:

gpg --list-secret-keys --keyid-format LONG

The first lines will be like:

sec   rsa4096/<public_hex>

The hexadecimal part after the / is a public reference to keybase.io keypair. It’s shown on the keybase.io public profile, next to the key icon.

Next one can sign Git commits with GPG using the exported keybase.io PGP key.