removing uids in gpg

here is the problem:

you hava gpg key since 5 years. you had various mail addresses over the time and every mail address is attached to a key. so it'll look ugly, like this.

the problem is that once you pushed a uid (read: email address, attached to a key) to the keyserver, you can no longer remove it. but here is the solution: you can revoke it! :)

how to do so?

it's easy:

$ gpg --edit-key john@foo.org

a list of your ids with numbers are displayed. select a uid:

Command> uid 2

then you can revoke it:

Command> revuid 3 Really revoke this user ID? (y/N) y Please select the reason for the revocation: 0 = No reason specified 4 = User ID is no longer valid Q = Cancel (Probably you want to select 4 here) Your decision? 4 Enter an optional description; end it with an empty line: > Reason for revocation: User ID is no longer valid (No description given) Is this okay? (y/N) y

you can notice that the uid is now listed as "revoked" instead of "ultimate"

now you can exit using:

Command> save

and send it to the key server:

$ gpg --send-key 03915096

of course the uids will be still there, but that bloated list should be now short and tiny :)