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Starting GPG Agent Daemon in PowerShell

Occasionally, I have my GPG agent randomly stop working. This quick reference to how to restart the GPG agent daemon in PowerShell.

Start Command

& 'C:\Program Files (x86)\GnuPG\bin\gpg-agent.exe' --daemon

Breakdown of the Command

  • &: The ampersand (&) is a PowerShell operator that runs the command or script that follows it. It's used here to invoke the gpg-agent.exe executable directly.

  • 'C:\Program Files (x86)\GnuPG\bin\gpg-agent.exe': This is the full path to the gpg-agent.exe executable. It’s typically installed in this location on a Windows machine, but if you have installed it elsewhere, you’ll need to provide the correct path.

  • --daemon: This flag starts the gpg-agent as a background process, or "daemon." It keeps the agent running, enabling GPG operations to be performed without repeatedly prompting for passphrases.

How to Stop the Daemon

If you need to stop the gpg-agent, you can use the following command in PowerShell:

& 'C:\Program Files (x86)\GnuPG\bin\gpg-agent.exe' --daemon --kill

This will stop the running daemon process.