- Gmail can now send E2EE emails to non-Gmail users, but it’s not quite as simple
- Only Workspace Enterprise Plus customers can use the feature
- It’s still far more accessible than S/MIME
Google is strengthening email security by offering client-side encryption to Gmail users, even if they’re sending to recipients with other email providers.
It means Gmail senders will be able to end-to-end encrypt (E2EE) emails across providers, for example, if sending from Gmail to Outlook, ensuring no unwarranted access is granted to the content of their message.
However, there’s a key difference in how recipients can open their emails, and it won’t be quite as smooth as content landing straight in their inbox.
Gmail users can send encrypted emails to all
Gmail-to-Gmail E2EE emails show in the regular email because Google can take care of the infrastructure for both the sender and recipient, but because Google has no control over recipients’ infrastructure on other providers, they’ll be directed to a guest Gmail account to open the mail.
Still, it ensures business users can communicate securely without the hassle of exchanging keys or downloading specialized software.
“This capability, requiring minimal efforts for both IT teams and end users, abstracts away the traditional IT complexity and substandard user experiences of existing solutions, while preserving enhanced data sovereignty, privacy, and security controls,” Google said.
From launch, it will be available to Google Workspace Enterprise Plus customers with the Assured Controls add-on. Rollout has already started, but it could take until mid-October for all users to see the changes.
In a separate blog post earlier in 2025, Google Workspace Senior Product Manager Johney Burke and Product Manager Julien Duplant criticized today’s S/MIME protocol for being hard to work with, hence the effort to simplify cross-provider email encryption.
But Google isn’t the only company working on simplifying encryption. Proton also offers full E2EE for its own users as well as password-protected links for third parties to view encrypted mail.
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