Missing Private Key

There are two main reasons why your downloaded ZIP-file might not contain a private key file. To learn more about why your private.key file may not be available, please keep reading below.

Reason #1: Changed Password

Your account password is uniquely connected to the way we securely retrieve your private keys when you want to download your certificate (.zip file). As a result, if you change or reset your ZeroSSL account password, our system can no longer retrieve any private keys for certificates that were created when you still had your old password.

It is important to understand that changing your password will remove all private keys from your ZeroSSL account, so please make sure to either always download your certificates (.zip files) always directly after creating them, or download all of your certificates (.zip files) before changing or resetting your password.

Reason #2: You Entered Your Own CSR

Another reason why you might not find a private key in your downloaded ZIP-file is that an existing CSR (keypair) was pasted while creating your certificate. In this case, you would have your own private key stored somewhere on your server.