User-friendly encrypted email with no plugins or apps. Simply wrap brackets around the subject in any email client and Bracket handles the rest. Sounds interesting right?
EASY TO USE
MAXIMUM SECURITY
Introducing Bracket 3
Three years ago Bracket proved that encrypted email didn’t need to be complicated to use, and now we’re doing it again! Watch the quick video overview to check out the awesome features we’ve adding for Bracket’s 3rd anniversary, then keep reading to get all the details.
BRACKET SHARE
Secure File Transfer
Included with Bracket is our encrypted file transfer service, Bracket Share. This gives every Bracket user their own personalized file transfer page with an easy URL (Share link) they can give to anyone. Shared files and messages show up in the Bracket inbox just like a regular message.
Customizable Link
Bracket Share links are customizable, so users can make them easy to remember and share.
Personalized invites
You can have Bracket email people an invitation to share. These can display your personalized profile, so your contacts feel more confident about sharing their sensitive data.
Anyone can share… anytime
Anyone with your Share link can share encrypted files and messages when it’s convenient for them. No account required.
Sender validation
Senders who share through the Share link are securely validated via inbox authentication to prevent abuse.
MX-free for Office 365
Office 365 and Bracket with no MX record changes
Now a standalone version of Bracket can be deployed for Office 365 with no need to change your MX records to route through Mailprotector’s inbound and outbound filtering services.
Completely automated setup
Instant deployment to users
Automatic user sync
Works with Office 365 Compliance Center for DLP
4x bigger files
Send large files with ease
Don't worry about bounced emails with large attachments. Bracket can handle files up to 1GB in size with up to 25 files allowed per message. Large files are good to go when sending from Bracket's webmail interface or Bracket Share.
Encryption that's secure and easy to use.
Ultra-secure data encryption
Don't let Bracket's ease of use fool you. The encryption techniques we employ to secure your email data are state of the art. Bracket is built on a distributed, multi-layer AES256 encryption design with automatic key rotation. This means you never have to wonder if your data is safe.
Inbox authentication
Lightning fast sign in without sacrificing security
Securely sign in without a password
Simply request to sign in using your email address, then click the secure link from your inbox (the same way password resets are handled most of the time). Bracket bakes in extra security so it's actually more secure than password logins.
Expiring, one-time-use links
Bracket sign-in links expire 15 minutes after being delivered. In addition, each sign-in link only works once, so you never have to worry about someone rummaging through your inbox and opening old links.
Geolocation of sign-in requests
As an addional layer of security, sign-in request notifications also include the requesting device IP and approximate location.
Advanced device fingerprinting
Sign-in links will only work from the device that originally requested access. If a different device attempts to sign in, the link is invalidated and the session is blocked.
Send from any email client on any OS
Email encryption is usually constrained to a specific operating system or mail client, but Bracket frees you up to send encrypted email from literally any email client. So whether your users prefer iPhone, Android, Windows, Linux, or PC (or maybe they just can't let go of their Blackberry)... it simply doesn't matter with Bracket.
"Bracket encrypts email better than other solutions while taking the pain out of the user experience at the same time. We think that's pretty amazing."
No apps or plugins to install
Most encryption solutions rely on downloading and installing numerous apps and plugins depending on where you're sending from, but Bracket takes a different approach. To send an encrypted email with Bracket, just wrap the subject in brackets and send it on its way. It's really that simple.
Ephemeral message storage
Sensitive data shouldn't default to being kept forever. With Bracket, all data is temporary and there are no mailbox quotas to keep track of. Just send and receive secure messages and go on with your day. By default, messages expire in 1 year, but you can set any message to expire sooner if you wish.
We've also made it easy to securely get your data out of Bracket and back in to the other email systems you use that are designed for retention, discovery, and reporting. Seamless archive integration allows you to automatically have your data securely journaled to an archive. The optional 'Export to Inbox' feature even allows users to instantly and securely transfer the message to their normal email inbox.
Personal data keys
A personal data key gives you ultimate control of your encrypted message data. When you enable this feature, all of your messages are encrypted in a way which requires the personal data key in order to decrypt the data. And since this key is never stored in Bracket, only you hold the key to reading your messages. You control the key, you control your data.
"Bracket was designed from the ground up to remove the pain from email encryption."
Frequently Asked Questions
From any email program: To encrypt an email using Bracket simply open your favorite email program, and send an email as you normally would. All you have to do is wrap your subject in brackets [like this] before you send your message. When you wrap your subject line in brackets it will tell our systems to encrypt the message and will automatically sent notifications to the recipients you have defined.
From bracket.email: You can also create and send an encrypted email when you're signed in to bracket.email. Just click the pencil icon in the left navigation bar to create a new message. If you’re on your smartphone just tap the button in the bottom right of your inbox. When you create a new message directly from the Bracket portal, you'll notice that brackets wrap your subject automatically, so there’s no need to add them manually.
New messages and replies are automatically saved as a draft. If something happens to your computer or device while you're creating a message don’t worry - it will simply show up in your inbox as a draft which you can open and finish any time.
No. With Bracket you can create and send an encrypted email from any client configured to accept and send mail from your email address. All you have to do is wrap your subject in brackets [like this] before you send it (you can also send encrypted email from bracket.email). Recipients of your message won't need to download anything either.
Go to https://bracket.email and enter your email address. If you have an active Bracket account, we'll email you a secure sign-in link. After opening the email, click or tap the sign-in button or enter the sign-in code shown in the email to access your Bracket inbox. For your security, your sign-in link and code will work only once, and will expire in 15 minutes from the time it was requested.
No. When creating an encrypted email with Bracket, you'll need to be using the email address your email administrator has configured to work with Bracket. If you tried to send an encrypted email from a personal address @gmail.com, @outlook.com, or @yahoo.com, those mail systems wouldn't be set up to handle encryption for Bracket, so your email would be delivered without ever passing through Bracket's systems.
Bracket is great for sharing large attachments which normally can’t be sent through email. Bracket limits the single file attachment size to 250 MB, but you can send multiple attachments of this size at once. When sending a large attachment, be sure to send your message from the bracket.email portal instead of your normal email client. While Bracket has no problem with sending large attachments, your own mail systems might not be so accommodating.
When you receive a new message notification, click the button in the email to view the message, then click or tap one of the reply buttons shown. Your reply will be added to the message thread cronologically, and all recipients of the original message will receive a notification with a secure link which will log them in and take them to your reply.
Bracket doesn’t do forwarding like normal email clients. Instead, Bracket lets you give new recipients access to the message thread. If you’re the thread creator, you can simply click the “Add Recipient” button from the message view page and enter an email address to add someone to the thread. If you didn’t create the original message you can still add a recipient the same way, but the creator of the message will need to approve the change before they are added. Once a new recipient is added to the recipients list, they’ll be emailed a notification that will take them to the current thread where they can read through the original message as well as any attachments and replies.
You may be unable to change certain message options because your administrator has locked them. If an option is greyed out you'll need to contact your email administrator for more information.
Sometimes there may be a message preview which shows the subject line in a notification. If your subject content is sensitive, you may want to switch this setting on to keep away prying eyes from seeing the notifications.
Yes, you can set message options from any email client by adding some extra text to the subject line. Here's a list of the settings you can manage from with subject line commands.
- Export to Inbox: export: true/false
- Protect Subject: protectsubject: true/false
- Message Password: password: 1234
- Message Expiration: expires: February 7 2018
IMPORTANT: each option needs to be separated by a comma. Below is an example of what an encrypted email would look like if you wanted to manually control the options for a message from the subject line of your email client.
Example: [subject] export: false, protectsubject: true, password: 1234, expires: february 7, 2018
Bracket is super easy to use, but we haven't sacrificed your privacy or security. Here's why you can rest assured that your data is also very safe. One thing that really makes Bracket intuitive is signing in doesn't require a password. You're probably thinking "What?... no password! How is that secure?" But think about it... if someone has access to your email on one of your devices your security is already compromised. This method of logging in is even more secure than the widely accepted practice of emailing yourself a password reset link for the following reasons:
- Expiring sign in links - Whether you're requesting a sign-in link or viewing a message from a notification, the email you receive contains a one-time-use button that securely signs you in and takes you directly to the message. If that button is clicked again, you'll be prompted to request a fresh sign-in link. After 15 minutes, an unused signin URL is invalidated and will no longer work.
- Device fingerprinting - We've added an extra layer of security called "device fingerprinting". If a sign-in link is clicked on a device which is different from the device used when requesting the sign-in link, the sign-in session will be invalid. To sign in to Bracket, you must use the same device you used when requesting the sign-in link. This way, your email link cannot be spoofed or intercepted in any way.
- Geolocation of sign in requests - Each sign-in request contains a geolocation signature which shows the approximate location from which the sign-in request originated. This is displayed in the footer of your sign in email as text and a map image.
The message creator can remove a recipient by clicking the X button next to their name in the “recipients” section at the bottom of each thread. Once a person is removed from the recipients list they will lose access to the conversation and will no longer receive notifications when a new reply is added.
To completely remove access for all recipients of a message and delete your message from existance, click or tap the “recall message” button in the top toolbar. This will effectively terminate all user access to the message (including your own) and delete the message from Bracket. There’s no way to restore a message once you’ve recalled it, so please be careful. If you’d like to keep the message available to yourself, a safer option would simply be to remove all individual recipients of your message by scrolling to the bottom and clicking the X button beside each recipient.
Because most people don't want or need their sensitive data lingering around forever, Bracket only retains your messages for one year. But if you want to save it for longer than that, we've made it very simple to export your data to archiving solutions, or even securely download them to the inbox on your email client. If you'd need a message to expire more quickly, you can set the message expiration by clicking the message options icon in the top navigation and adjusting the expiration date (both when creating a new message or viewing a message you've already created). Just remember that expired messages are deleted and will no longer accessible to you or any of the other recipients for that message.m any email client by adding some extra text to the subject line. Here's a list of the settings you can manage from with subject line commands.
- Export to Inbox: export: true/false
- Protect Subject: protectsubject: true/false
- Message Password: password: 1234
- Message Expiration: expires: February 7 2018
IMPORTANT: each option needs to be separated by a comma. Below is an example of what an encrypted email would look like if you wanted to manually control the options for a message from the subject line of your email client.
Example: [subject] export: false, protectsubject: true, password: 1234, expires: february 7, 2018
Yes you can, as long as the original creator of the email has allowed it. Exporting a message lets you deliver an entire message thread to your inbox via secure SMTP delivery. If exporting a message is allowed by the message creator there will be a download icon in the top toolbar. Simply tap or click this icon to export a message thread to your inbox. You can disable the Export to Inbox option for every message you send from the settings page, or you can revoke the export option from the message options for an individual message.
You’ll be prompted with a warning if the message contains attachments that are larger than what most mail servers would allow. The reason for this is that many email servers outside of Bracket have relatively small attachment size limits which would cause your message to not be delivered. If you get the warning message that your attachments are too large to export, you should export the message without attachments, then download the individual attachments you want from the message thread itself when logged into Bracket.
Yes. When viewing a message that you originally created, you can see when your recipients opened your message, downloaded an attachment, or took various other activities related to your message. As the message thread creator, you are the only person in the thread who sees this information.
If you really want to lock your Bracket access down we also have two advanced options which make your content so secure that our highest level engineers couldn't access your email... even if another entity tried to force us.
- You can enable Two Factor Authentication - Two factor authentication makes it so you'll be prompted to enter a unique code when signing in (in addition to the normal sign in process). This code will be sent to your mobile device via SMS. You can set up TFA from your settings page. When setting up TFA you will be required to enter your mobile phone number. Be sure you give this a mobile number that you have readily available access to. Once TFA is enabled, you'll sign in by requesting a sign-in link as usual, but you will then be prompted to enter a randomly generated, single use, six-digit code (which is automatically delivered via SMS to your mobile device).
- Enable a Personal Data Key - You can tell Bracket to generate a secure personal data key from the settings page. Your personal data key will be shown to you only during setup, at which time you will be responsible for recording your key and storing it in a safe place. Once enabled, this unique key will be required when you sign in. If you have enabled this security mechanism, it will be impossible to view your data without your personal data key. Please note that without this key our only way to restore your access to Bracket is to reset your account, which will wipe any previously existing messages. It's that secure.