Email Etiquette; Forwarding using the BCC field
Following a reader request, let's take a quick look at the different ways to address emails to your recipients.
When you send an email you probably send your message to someone using the "To" field. This is the easiest (and most obvious) way to send an email. You can also add more that one name to the "To" field. However it's worth knowing about a couple of other fields.
The CC field
CC is short for "Carbon Copy", and can be regarded as exactly the same as using the "To" field, however, the CC field is designed for people who are not directly involved with the email - think of them as "For Your Information" or "Just so you Know" recipients. The CC field has many uses in a business environment.
So why are the To and CC field not enough?
When you use the "To" or "CC" fields for more than one recipient, ALL the recipients of the message see ALL the addresses. This means that all the recipients get to see the email addresses, which - in some cases is fine, however when sending to a wider audience this is usually undesirable; nobody likes their email address exposed to the public.
Let me give you an example. If I were to send the Bodrum Bulletin out to all subscribers using the To or CC fields, every single email would be sent with the email addresses of every single recipient. Not only does this invade privacy, but if one of my subscribers hit "Reply to All", every subscriber would read the reply. A big mess.
Introducing the "Blind Carbon Copy" (BCC) field.
The BCC field can be considered to be the same as the To and CC fields, but with one major difference; neither the BCC field itself or the email addresses appear in any of the copies of the email.
So why use it?
In business environments there are many uses, but for personal use, the BCC field is best used when forwarding joke emails to friends. Use the BCC field instead of the CC field; this ensures maximum anonymity within your email groups.
I don't see a BCC field
Sometimes the BCC field is hidden, so here's how to find it;
- In Outlook, create a new message, then go to the View menu, and click BCC: Field.
- In Outlook 2003 or higher, create a new message, then go to the Options menu, and click Show BCC.
- In Yahoo!, click Add BCC:
- In Gmail, click Add BCC:
So next time you forward an email to a large group of people, please consider using the BCC field.