What is BCC?

BCC stands for Blind Carbon Copy. It is an email option that allows the original sender to send a copy of the email to one or more intended recipients without the other recipients knowing who the additional recipients are. By using BCC, the sender can keep the recipients of the email list private, or simply one way of keeping track of who the email has been sent to.

Who uses BCC and Why?

Businesses, organizations, and individuals all use BCC to send an email to more than one person while still keeping their contact list private. It is also a useful tool for when you need to send the same email to large groups of people and you don’t want those emails bouncing back to everyone on the list. BCC also helps the sender avoid potential embarrassment caused by the recipient seeing a long list of email addresses in the “To” field. When sending emails to many people, BCC also reduces the amount of spam sent to the end-users on the recipient list.

Using BCC

When sending an email, look for an “BCC” field usually located just below the “To” field. Use the BCC field to enter the email address of the person you want to cc on the message. Whenever you use BCC, keep in mind that the people whose emails are in the BCC field will not be able to see who else is on the list. If you want to enter multiple email addresses in BCC, separate them with a comma.

When someone replies to the message, they are replying only to the sender, not to everyone in the BCC list. Be sure to consider the privacy of those on the BCC list before sending your email. In most cases, it is kind to let the people know that their email is in the BCC.