There always seems to be some confusion about what is blind carbon copy in email. Some definitions I have seen on the Internet vary considerably and that is why I decided to write my own explanation but with a little more detail.
What is BCC and CC in Email
In order to explain what BCC is, I need to also include a definition for CC in email.
Blind Carbon Copy (BCC) lets you hide who the recipients are to an email. So just say you want to send an email to 20 people but don’t want them all to see each others email addresses. This is when you use BCC. All 20 people will see the email message but will not see all the recipients it was sent to. They will only see their own email address.
Carbon Copy (CC) allows you to send a copy of the original message to someone other than the main recipient. This is usually done to show an email has been sent. For example,
To Field is the normal area where you add in the email recipients contact name or email address. When the email arrives the recipient will see who the email is from and their own email address.
How Do You Send a BCC Email Message?
Most email programs are the same. You press on new email message and fill in the details.
See this screenshot below.
To fill in the TO section I only had to double click on the TO link and add a contact. If the person I want to send an email to is not in my contacts I can simply write the email address in manually. The same applies for CC and BCC.
In this example I am sending an email to JACK, a copy to ZAC, and then a BCC to others.
When JACK receives the email he will see that I have sent a copy of the message to ZAC.
When ZAC gets the CC he will see that I have sent the original to JACK.
Neither will see the other BCC email addresses.
Is Blind Carbon Copy Safe?
BCC usually does what it promises and does not share the email addresses of all the recipients. If there is a problem it is most likely due to human error.
Why Would You Want to Use BCC?
When I think about using BCC it is usually for privacy reasons. It is for those times when you can’t possibly share all recipient email addresses with the others.
Sharing other people’s email addresses is just like handing out their home phone numbers, it is not good etiquette and you have no right to do it.