diff --git a/gpgmymail b/gpgmymail
index f9a5473..633dbb1 100755
--- a/gpgmymail
+++ b/gpgmymail
@@ -174,7 +174,8 @@ def encrypt(
         recipients: typing.List[str],
         *,
         unconditionally_encrypt: bool = False,
-        encoding: str = DEFAULT_ENCODING
+        encoding: str = DEFAULT_ENCODING,
+        ignore_errors: bool = False
     ) -> str:
     """Encrypt given message
 
@@ -184,22 +185,39 @@ def encrypt(
     False (default), will NOT encrypt if any of the following conditions are
     met:
     - The message is already encrypted
+    - The message is encoded with base64
+    :param encoding: string for encoding to use for the gnupg.GPG object
+    :param ignore_errors: bool, puts some parts of the function in
+
+        try:
+            do_stuff()
+        except:
+            pass
+
+    blocks. find ignore_errors to see instances where this occurs
 
     :return: The encrypted email as a string"""
     
     # exclusion criteria:
     # some mail clients like Thunderbird don't like twice-encrypted emails,
     # so we return the message as-is if it's already encrypted
-    if is_message_encrypted(message) and not unconditionally_encrypt:
-        return message.as_string()
+    if not unconditionally_encrypt:
+        if is_message_encrypted(message):
+            return message.as_string()
+        # bc i just have a bunch of issues w b64
+        if "Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64" in message.as_string():
+            return message.as_string()
 
     # make necessary changes to message
     # this function is quite clunky and seems to throw exceptions from time to
     # time; if we can't make the necessary changes we want to just continue
     try:
         message = decode_email(message)
-    except:
-        pass
+    except Exception as e:
+        if ignore_errors:
+            pass
+        else:
+            raise e
     
     gpg = gnupg.GPG()
     gpg.encoding = encoding
@@ -257,6 +275,8 @@ def main() -> None:
                         help="Encoding to use for the gnupg.GPG object")
     parser.add_argument('--unconditional', action="store_true",
                         help="Encrypt mail unconditionally. By default, mail is not encrypted if it is already encrypted.")
+    parser.add_argument('--ignore-errors', action="store_true",
+                        help="Ignore errors at certain error-prone points of the script.")
     parser.add_argument('recipient', nargs='*',
                         help="Key ID or email of keys to encrypt for")
     args = parser.parse_args()
@@ -269,7 +289,8 @@ def main() -> None:
             msg,
             args.recipient,
             unconditionally_encrypt=args.unconditional,
-            encoding=args.encoding
+            encoding=args.encoding,
+            ignore_errors=args.ignore_errors
         ))
 
 if __name__ == '__main__':