How to send encrypted email in Microsoft 365

If you are sending emails to outside recipients containing sensitive information like personal healthcare information (PHI) for HIPPA compliance or financial information, you must encrypt the email before sending it.

Encrypted emails are very easy to do and easy for the recipient to access and read. This requires you to have a valid Office 365 subscription with the Encryption feature.

Which subscriptions support encryption?

These Microsoft 365 subscriptions support the Microsoft email encryption functionality. If you do not see this functionality, reach out to your systems administrator, and ask if they have disabled this.

1. Microsoft 365 Business Premium
2. Microsoft 365 Enterprise E3, E5, F3
3. Office 365 Enterprise E3, E5, F3

Use the Encrypt option in Legacy Outlook

1. Create a new email message.
2. Choose the Options menu.
3. Select Encrypt and pick the encryption restrictions you want to enforce.
   
   

Use the Encrypt option in New Outlook and Outlook Web

1. Create a new email message.
2. Select the Options Menu.
3. Select an Encryption type.
   
   

How to open an encrypted email

For most users, this will be a transparent process. Users of Outlook and major email platforms like Gmail will process most of the work. Here is a link you may send the recipient if they are having a problem opening the encrypted email.

How to open a Microsoft encrypted email

Additional information

When you need to protect the privacy of an email message, encrypt it. Encrypting an email message in Outlook means it’s converted from readable plain text into scrambled cipher text. Only the recipient with the private key matching the public key used to encrypt the message can decipher the message for reading. Any recipient without the corresponding private key, however, sees indecipherable text.

Here are the descriptions for the three encryption options:

1. Encrypt: This option ensures that your email message stays encrypted throughout its journey. The message remains protected and can only be read by the intended recipient. This is useful for sending sensitive information securely.
2. Do Not Forward: When you select this option, your email message is encrypted and cannot be forwarded, copied, or printed by the recipient. This helps maintain the confidentiality of the information by restricting its distribution.
3. No Permissions Set: This is the default setting where no specific encryption or restrictions are applied to the email. The message is sent as usual without any additional security measures.

Here are some links to Microsoft content where you can find more information about email encryption:

1. Email encryption in Microsoft 365 – This article provides an overview of the different email encryption options available in Microsoft 365, including Microsoft Purview Message Encryption, S/MIME, and Information Rights Management (IRM).
2. What Is Email Encryption – This page explains what email encryption is, how it works, and its benefits for protecting sensitive information.
3. Send encrypted email messages in Outlook for Windows – This support article provides step-by-step instructions on how to send encrypted emails using Outlook for Windows.

SMIME warning

If you are getting a warning about requiring SMIME, you are using the wrong encryption. The legacy encryption requires SMIME, but the new Microsoft encryption does not.  

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