Keep GnuPG credentials cached for entire user session

Up to GnuPG 2

The user configuration (in ~/.gnupg/gpg-agent.conf) can only define the default and maximum caching duration; it can't be disabled.

The default-cache-ttl option sets the timeout (in seconds) after the last GnuPG activity (so it resets if you use it), the maximum-cache-ttl option set the timespan (in seconds) it caches after entering your password. The default value is 600 seconds (10 minutes) for default-cache-ttl and 7200 seconds (2 hours) for maximum-cache-ttl.

Set it to a year or so – say, 34560000 seconds (400 days) – and you should be fine:

default-cache-ttl 34560000
maximum-cache-ttl 34560000

But for this change to take effect, you need to end the session by restarting gpg-agent.

If you want to limit to your session length, you'd need to kill the daemon at logout. This is very different between operating systems, so I'm referring to another question/answer containing hints for different systems.

You could also restart the gpg-agent during login, but this does not limit caching time to the session length, but logins of a user. Decide yourself if this is a problem in your case.

GnuPG 2.1 and above

In GnuPG 2.1 and above, the maximum-cache-ttl option was renamed to max-cache-ttl without further changes.

For Windows

The file you need to edit should be placed at: ~\.gnupg\

If you run that in a PowerShell window it will open: C:\Users\<UserName>\.gnupg

Just put the gpg-agent.conf file there with whatever values you like.

You can verify it took by running:

1. gpgconf.exe --reload gpg-agent
2. gpgconf.exe --list-options gpg-agent

You can also use this one liner: Set-Content -Path ~\.gnupg\gpg-agent.conf -Value "default-cache-ttl 86400$([System.Environment]::NewLine)max-cache-ttl 86400"

Older Versions Of GPG

In older versions, the file was at: $env:AppData\gnupg (C:\Users\<UserName>\AppData\Roaming\gnupg)

So if you can't find it at ~\.gnupg\gpg-agent.conf look there.

Make sure to reload your gpg agent with gpg-connect-agent reloadagent /bye after changing the config.