Backup neomutt passwords

Short answer: pass stores everything in ~/.password-store/, encrypted with GPG. If you don’t copy your GPG key, the passwords will be useless after reinstall.

Here’s the full, no-BS explanation 👇

Where pass saves passwords

pass is just a fancy wrapper around:

~/.password-store/

Inside that directory you’ll see files like:

email/gmail.gpg
email/protonmail.gpg
mutt/imap.gpg

Each file is GPG-encrypted. So copying only the files is not enough.

The CRITICAL part: your GPG key 🔐

pass encrypts using your GPG private key, usually stored in:

~/.gnupg/

If you reinstall Arch without this key, pass will say:

decryption failed: No secret key

So you MUST back up both:

1. ~/.password-store/
2. your GPG private key

How to back it up properly (recommended way)

1. Export your GPG keys

List your key first:

gpg --list-secret-keys --keyid-format=long

You’ll see something like:

sec   rsa4096/ABCDEF1234567890

Export it:

gpg --export-secret-keys ABCDEF1234567890 > privatekey.gpg
gpg --export ABCDEF1234567890 > publickey.gpg

⚠️ Keep privatekey.gpg secret (USB, encrypted drive, etc.)

2. Copy the password store

cp -r ~/.password-store ~/password-store-backup

(Optional but smart)

tar czvf pass-backup.tar.gz ~/.password-store privatekey.gpg publickey.gpg

After reinstalling Arch 🧼

1. Restore files

cp -r password-store-backup ~/.password-store

2. Import GPG key

gpg --import privatekey.gpg
gpg --import publickey.gpg

3. Trust the key

gpg --edit-key YOURKEYID
trust
5
quit

4. Test

pass ls
pass show email/gmail

If it decrypts → you’re golden 💪

Luke Smith / mutt-wizard specific note

mutt-wizard uses pass directly, usually paths like:

pass email/accountname
pass mutt/accountname

So restoring pass = restoring mutt, isync, msmtp, etc. No re-entering passwords. No pain.

TL;DR (important)

✅ Copy ~/.password-store/ ✅ Export and keep your GPG private key ❌ Don’t reinstall without it 💀 Otherwise passwords are gone forever