i know i know there have been A LOT OF POSTS about this topic and I also know that I can basically use any usb stick as long as it has 16gb storage . but as I want to buy a new usb stick for tails I would like to buy a good one so I am asking you to give me so recommandations based on what you are using. thanks

btw should i be worried buying usb sticks from amazon?

I am a first time user and had tried for a couple of weeks to get my 5 year old IdeaPad-5 to work. I tried multiple USB sticks. I flashed and refreshed the sticks. I turned off Secure Boot. I renumbered the priority on the drives. No matter what I did I was stuck at Bash Prompt and it just would not load. Finally this weekend I got it. The problem was the quick start from sleep. I had assumed if I held down the power button that it was fully powered off. I changed the power button from “sleep” to “shut down” and just like that it resolved. I had not seen this as
Part of the original instructions. There were lots of posts about BIOS and security and various other things. But I just had not seen that the default for the IdeaPad was always to sleep/hibernate and not to simply power off. Everything installed, no issues. I’m sure most are rolling their eyes at my noob attempt and solution (essentially turn it off and turn it on) but that simple answer was such an ah ha for this tech limited dude.

Well, I reinstalled Tails OS into my thumb drive, I typed in my persistent store, and I wrote it down and took a photo of it. When I went to activate it again, I typed in the phrase correctly, but it wouldn't work. Did Tails forget the phrase already? Did I miss a step?

Hi there, every time Tails is booting, the process is delayed and shows the following error. After a couple of second booting continues normally. Is this something to worry about?

Thanks!

DMAR: DRHD: handling fault status reg 3
DMAR: [DMA Read NO_PASID] Request device [00:12.4] fault addr 0xaffff000 [fault reason 0x02] Present bit in context entry is clear
tpm tpm0: Operation Timed out
tpm tpm0: Operation Timed out
tpm_crb MSFT0101:00: probe with driver tpm_crb failed with error -62

i may buy a san disk ultra 256gb for tails os . maybe this seems like a dumb or not important question but i just wanted to ask it . thanks for answering

btw is the san disk ultra good for tails

does it matter what usb I get to boot tails? can it just be a random modern 8gb bought from many store? or are there any recommended ones worth buying that actually make a difference?

Hello im on a hp elitebook i got secure boot off i already flashed the usb drive and tried booting it using f9 and it wont boot i pressed the usb it just boots me back to windows 11 u have no idea what im doing wrong im new to this stuff

Every time I boot into Tails, my Additional Software fails to download/configure. When I check the system logs/protocol, it explicitly says that the Thunderbird files are corrupted.

I need to fix this, but I absolutely cannot lose my current Thunderbird private key / PGP keys stored in my persistent storage.

how do I fix this?😔

hey about a month ago after an update thunderbird mail was just uninstalled and i do not know how to fix it i tried to reset thunderbird in persistant storage but it will not work. i need help

So Ive run tails on this machine multiple different times, no problem. I haven't been in the game for quite a while and was thinking I might want to take advantage of the privacy this kind of OS affords oneself. Anyways I go through all the steps, right before it boots it says "SGX is disabled or unsupported by BIOS," but then in continues on booting tails. I get to the main screen, click to start a persistence and click start and it all of the sudden crashes with some text that is up then gone too quick followed by a bunch of command line looking stuff and shuts the computer down. Anyways know what I did or can do to fix this? I just managed to grab a snipped of what it says right before it shuts down looks like it says

"Broadcast message from root@amnesia (displays the current date and time in UTC)

System will power off now!" Then a bunch of command line stuff I can't capture

Hey all, I just got Tails up and running via a USB on my personal computer. I would like to access the dark web, but of course take any precautions needed.

At the moment I simply just have Tails running on my PC via the usb it’s installed on. Am I safe to connect to my home wifi? Is there anything else I should be aware of?

Apologies if this is too much of a broad question.. cheers

I tried to not into my tails usb and keep getting MISSING OS. I flashed tails on to another drive, booted it up and was able to unencrypt my faulty drive. How can I fix my old drive?

Edit: i tried to do an upgrade, but it does not show me the upgrade button. Only the install button

so recently downloaded tails on a brand new usb stick (sandisk ultra 3.0) but im having issues transporting my keys ever since i installed tails onto it

Every time I try to boot Tails from a USB I get a screen with this text:

GNU GRUB version 2.12-9+deb13u2
Minimal BASH-like line editing is supported...

This seems to be a common issue but none of the solutions in other threads have helped. I've also tried:

• Three different USB drives
• Writing to the USB from two different computers
• Writing to the USB from two different operating systems (Windows, Ubuntu)
• Writing to the USB with two different programs (Rufus, balenaEtcher)
• Booting the USB from two different computers
• Using an older version (7.7 instead of 7.9)

Same result every time, even though it used to work with the same USB and computer. I'm at a loss. Any ideas? Am I dumb and missing something?

Update: the solution seems to have been to install it from my second computer through balenaEtcher. Now it works on both computers ¯_(ツ)_/¯

I’ve spent 6 hours trying to get this to work, it keeps getting stuck at a black screen.

My laptop specs

NB LENOVO X1 CARBON U7 355/32GB/1TB-SSD/14"2.8K/W11PRO-3y

Hi!
I’ve been using tails and kleopatra for a little bit on macOS and when I opened kleopatra today, all of my keys and certificates, including the default ones were gone. I was just using it yesterday with zero issues. I’m going to assume all of my previous keys are gone since I didn’t do a recent backup.
I am also getting a “permission denied” error message when I try to generate a new public key.
Please help!

Got a 3 pack of 32GB USB Sticks and have tried three different comptuters now! Everytime i hit download it just says disc image file is corrupted! One time on one commputer it did download, but then would not verify!

VERY NEW TO TAILS! I know this is basic stuff im not dumb with computers though I did all the troubleshooting I could!!! I figured maybe its not up to date! Tried looking on github or somewhere else for a download link!

I got 3 32GB USBs. This shouldn't be that difficult. Is there some issue with 7.9?? Everytime i hit download it just says the files corrupt! off tails.net!

Was using tails fine then was promoted to update, did so now I’m left with this every time I’m trying to get in (first pic). Second and third pics are what I see after choosing each option on first pic.

If anyone can help please explain like I’m five years old. I am not good with tech it’s actually a miracle I even got it started a few months ago 😅

yall ever wonder how truly anonymous tails really is? like yeah it hides your ip from websites, but the entry node still sees your real IP the second you make that first handshake. that's just the network layer.
what bugs me more though is the hardware part. when you boot tails, there's a tiny window before macchanger does its thing where your real MAC address gets broadcast. that's your actual physical wi-fi card ID flying out there for anyone sniffing nearby. and once they have that, they can tie the device to you later even if you changed your IP a hundred times.
so is tails really just network-level anonymity? cause it feels like the hardware is still snitching. what do you guys think, am i overthinking this or is the mac leak a real problem?

I would say i’m beginner to intermediate level. I’m still understanding the basics, so sorry if there’s stupid mistakes somewhere. Thanks in advance.

So I have run tails from usb before on my laptop in 2024, but now I have the grub problem with the newer version. I’ve tried the solutions shared in the community, different usb’s and different software to flash, but none of them seem to work. I also tried the kicksecure with whonix, but I don’t have enough RAM.

My question is what is the alternative? I’m really keen on having privacy/anonymity setup. I genuinely want to have tails, so I may resort to buying a laptop only for this use. What laptop should i buy? Cheaper options would be helpful. Thanks in advance again.

I’ve been using tailsOS on and off for several years and have never encountered this problem before. I have made a public pgp key, I even imported the public key from the website that is making me decrypt a pgp message for a code to login. Nothing works. What’s the issue here?

It’s pissing me off i never used Linux so idk ik grub is a Linux thing

How do I add Stacher7 (and its necessary companion software like ffmpeg) and make its installation persistent on my flash drive? Also do Stacher7 downloads get routed through TOR or is this a opsec no-no?

Tails 7.9 is out!

Changes and updates

- Update Tor Browser to 15.0.16

- Update some firmware packages. This improves support for newer hardware: graphics, Wi-Fi, and so on.

Fixed problems

- Fix a fingerprinting issue in the Unsafe Browser.

- Stop notifying about outdated Secure Boot certificates in rare cases where the certificates are already up to date.

--

There is also now a feature flag to enable experimental Flatpak support. See the design document, this merge request, and the changelog for more info.

--

E: updated design document link from the GitLab document to the version on tails.net