can bcc recipients see each other?

Anyone who uses email on a regular basis has probably noticed that in addition to the To field, there is also a spot to fill in Cc and Bcc. While you might know that these options can be used to send a single email to multiple recipients, you might not know the exact differences between the two.

Cc stands for carbon copy, a method of copying a document in the pre-email days, but in our context is used to send an email to multiple recipients besides the main recipient in the To line. Everyone who is Cc’d on an email sees everyone else who is Cc’d. Think of it as a conference call in writing.

Bcc stands for blind carbon copy and works similar to the Cc field in that the same mail will be sent to everyone in this field, except, no one can see who is Bcc’d other than the person sending the email.

Still, confused about when and why you would use Bcc and how to use this email feature correctly? Not to worry, we have compiled a complete guide with everything you need to know!

As briefly mentioned above, Bcc stands for blind carbon copy and is an email feature that allows you to send the same email to a large number of people while keeping the list of recipients invisible to everyone but the sender himself.

In other words, if you send an email to a recipient in the To line and Bcc another person, the original recipient will have no way of knowing that someone else is included in the email chain.

This concept might seem a little sneaky, and can in fact be used incorrectly, either purposely or by accident. It is important to fully understand when and how to use Bcc in order to avoid any uncomfortable situations in which secret recipients are revealed and people feel as though they were deceived.

To review, those who have been Bcc’d on an email will be able to read the mail that has been sent but not be able to view who else has been Bcc’d and will also be invisible to those in the To and Cc lines.

In order words, Bcc is a way to send a mass email without showing all the recipients.

Bcc may have some potential pitfalls, but when used correctly can be a very useful email tool for maintaining security and privacy.

For example, if you wish to send out a promotional email for your business and have a large list of recipients, you can add everyone to the Bcc field to ensure the privacy of your clients’ email addresses.

Another useful time to use Bcc is to contact multiple freelancers for a potential job offer without exposing their personal email addresses to one another.

In these cases, is important to make sure EVERYONE is added to the Bcc field to avoid any mishaps. As long as all the emails are in the Bcc field, even hitting “reply all” will not reveal any unwanted information.

Depending on your email provider, the Bcc field might already be visible when opening up a new email window. In Gmail, when you open up a new email, there will be a small Bcc button in the upper-right-hand corner. Just click the Bcc button, and a bar will appear under the To field.

Add the email addresses to the Bcc bar, and you’re ready to send.

When sending a new email in Outlook, click on “Options” and you will see the Cc and Bcc options available. Again, just add your email addresses to the Bcc bar and send away!

If you wish to remove the Bcc field, just go back into Options and click Bcc again.

You might be wondering how secure Bcc really is. Is there any way for the other recipients of the mail to find out who was Bcc’d?

The simple answer is no. No one in the To, Cc, or Bcc lines will know who was Bcc’d.

Only the sender can look in their sent folder to see the full list of who received the mail. In theory, if the sender were to be hacked, the list of those Bcc’d could be revealed but this is a worst-case scenario.

However, there are other potential mistakes that could happen when using Bcc that are important to be aware of.

Let’s say someone was Bcc’d on an email and they hit reply all. Their response will be sent to the original sender, in addition to everyone in the To and Cc fields. Assuming those Bcc’d were hidden for a reason, this can cause major trust and privacy issues for those who did not know the mail was available to additional people.

This can be detrimental to brands or small businesses hoping to build trust and ensure the privacy of those doing business with them. It begs the question, what motivation did the sender have to hide some of the recipients?

Those Bcc’d without a clear explanation can also be put in a difficult position. If there is private information included in these emails, the Bcc’d party might not know if they should discuss the content of the email unless it was explicitly stated.

As mentioned above, Bcc is great for maintaining privacy and security, but it also has some other benefits.

Nothing is more annoying than being stuck on an email chain that is irrelevant to you. Maybe you were included in the original message for a reason, but all the additional responses are clogging your inbox.

The Bcc tool can be used to prevent unnecessary inbox overflow.

If you are sending out an original email that is important for many people to see, but you don’t want everyone to receive unnecessary replies or personal questions, Bcc is perfect. Those Bcc’d on an email will see the first email, but will not receive the replies of anyone else.

Bcc can also be used as anti-virus protection. Many viruses are sent through email and these spam programs find people’s email addresses by canning mail files on an infected computer. If one of your Bcc recipients gets a virus, the rest of the contacts that you Bcc’d on the email will be protected from this virus.

Just to review, Cc and Bcc are similar but those Cc’d are visible to each other and those Bcc’d are not. You might Cc someone on an email if you want them to be in the loop on something, but they are not the main person you’re sending to.

Be cautious! As we previously discussed, mistakes when using Bcc can not only make for awkward situations but can be costly to your businesses. If a client feels their privacy is compromised by working with you, they probably won’t take the chance.

Make sure to double-check your emails before sending them. It can be easy to mix up the Cc and Bcc fields if you are being careless. If you want all of your recipients to be in the Bcc line, make sure you didn’t accidentally put them in the Cc section.

Be honest! We advise that you don’t Bcc people on emails for any secretive purposes. Maintaining integrity is part basic when it comes to good business practices and as a person in general.

You wouldn’t want to feel like you were sharing information with one person, only to find out it was privy to others without your knowledge, so treat others with the same respect.

We touched on a few examples of when to use Bcc, but let’s get a little more specific.

If you have a list of monthly subscribers to your newsletter, you don’t want to reveal their email addresses to one another. This is a perfect example of when to use Bcc. By adding all the recipients to Bcc, you will send out your newsletter and maintain your subscribers’ privacy.

Bcc is also great for sending out invitations to an event or making a company-wide announcement. You will maintain the recipients’ privacy and avoid clogging their inboxes with replies, all at once.

Really any time you wish to send a wide audience a single message, Bcc is the email tool for you.

If you add a recipient's name to the Bcc (blind carbon copy) box in an email message, a copy of the message is sent to that recipient, but that name is not visible to other recipients of the message. After you turn on the Bcc box, it appears every time you create a message until it's turned off.

Your typical email program has several options to simultaneously message more than one person. You can load up the "To" box with many recipients and then blast away. Or you can put some (or one) in the "To" spot and CC the rest. Or else BCC some or all.

The BCC might be the trickiest as it means that not everyone is privy to the same information. And it has the biggest risk for pitfalls. So, when do you CC and when do you BCC?

First, you have to know what CC and BCC mean. The CC field stands for carbon copy; the BCC field stands for blind carbon copy. Carbon copies were common in pre-internet days. When someone needed a copy of a document, they inserted a sheet of carbon paper between two pieces of paper. The carbon paper helped the ink or type move from the top sheet to the bottom, and presto, you had two copies of the same paperwork.

What does cc mean in email? These days, an email CC means you sent a copy of a message to someone other than the direct recipient – it's an easy way to keep vested parties in the loop on a subject. Notably, the CC format allows everyone to see each other's email addresses, too.

BCC works the same way as CC, except the direct recipient (in the "To" line) doesn't know that anyone was copied on the message. So, for example, if you emailed a subordinate at work about being late to the office and BCC'd your own boss to show her that you were being diligent about tardiness, your subordinate wouldn't know that her lateness was being pointed out to your own superior.

Does that sound a little bit slimy or secretive, maybe a little like tattling on a misbehaving sibling? It should. You could call BCC the "backstabbing carbon copy," because its usage is often loaded with etiquette pitfalls and potential backlash. After all, if you're purposely hiding the fact that there are BCC recipients, maybe you should question your motives.

BCC is a notorious office space landmine, particularly if the person who is BCC'd accidentally hits Reply All. Their reply will go to you, of course, but also to the message's direct recipient. Whoops. This kind of abrupt disclosure has resulted in countless tense office scenarios. The takeaway? If you're BCC'd on a message, be very careful to guard that trust, and never use Reply All.

In spite of these issues, there are some very good reasons to use BCC. Maybe you're a supervisor of various contract or freelance workers who never interact with each other, and you want to update all of them on policy changes without having to send individual emails. To do so, you can send them all a message with just the BCC section filled in with their addresses.

This isn't just a matter of convenience for you – it also protects the privacy of your freelancers, who probably don't want a bunch of virtual strangers to see their personal email address.

Or maybe you're a company trying to contact many customers about an important issue. You absolutely have to use BCC, otherwise hundreds or thousands of people will suddenly see private email addresses. That's a major breach of trust.

• Open Auto BCC by clicking its icon in Outlook.
• Select the BCC rule you need in the list and click the Change rule button in the toolbar.
• Make the necessary changes to the rule name and the BCC rule settings and click Ok to save changes.

In this article, I’ll show you how to use the BCC function in Microsoft Outlook, Gmail, and Apple Mail correctly.

I’ll then explain when you should use the blind carbon copy field and four critical problems associated with the BCC method.

And super important…

The BCC address field is a completely outdated approach to send emails to multiple recipients.

That’s why I’ll also give you a really easy and effective way to send emails to multiple people.

(Click on the links below to jump to specific sections.)

The Basics

However, before we get started, let’s get familiar with a few terms commonly associated with the BCC feature.

Now that you know what these terms mean, let’s dive deeper into what BCC means.

The abbreviation BCC stands for “Blind Carbon Copy” or “Blind Courtesy Copy,” and it’s a feature that helps you send an email to multiple email addresses. The term “carbon copy” comes from carbon paper used to make copies of original documents.

When you enter a recipient email address in the BCC field, that address receives a blind copy of the email. And the primary recipient of the BCC’d mail will not be aware of the BCC’d recipient.

But wait, what does that mean? In simpler terms, an address included in the BCC field is “blind” or hidden from every other email recipient. Although a BCC’d recipient can see the direct recipient, they can’t tell who else was BCC’d in the email.

However, while your BCC recipient can’t tell who else has been added, they will know that they were BCC’d in the email.

How? The BCC label lets them know that they weren’t the only BCC recipients of your email.

Here’s what the primary recipient would see:

Here’s what a BCC’d recipient would see:

We’ve now covered what BCC is.

However, there’s another feature, CC, that also lets you email multiple recipients. Let’s see how they differ from each other.

Almost every email program or mail app comes with a Blind Carbon Copy (BCC) feature and a Carbon Copy (CC) feature. While both these features help you send an email to additional recipients, they differ in intent.

What makes them different? The main difference between the BCC field and the CC field lies in the privacy of the recipient.

When you use CC, the email addresses in the CC field are public to all recipients of the email. In other words, CC makes the email addresses viewable to all recipients. That lets everyone know who else received the message.

But with the BCC feature, any email recipient in the BCC field is hidden. While everyone can see who is in the To or CC line (the primary recipient), no one in the To or CC line can see the BCC email address.

Next, let’s see how you can use the BCC feature while sending an email.

Here’s a walk-through guide on using the BCC field to send emails to multiple email recipients from your computer and Android or iOS mobile device.

I’ll illustrate the process for:

Note: you can usually use these steps as a template for an email service provider like Yahoo Mail or AOL.

Step 1

Log into your email account (or use an alias or alternative email address if you have one). Under the Home tab in the Outlook email window, click on “New Email.”

Step 2

A new message window opens up. To add BCC recipients, select the Options tab on the Menu bar and then click on “BCC.”

Step 3

Click on the “Message” tab in the Menu bar and enter the email address of the primary recipient in the To field.

In the BCC field, type the email address of your BCC recipient.

For multiple addresses or a long list of recipients, you can separate each with a comma, space, or by pressing the enter key.

Now, you can compose the message and then click “Send” when done.

Note: Peter is the intended recipient of this email, and I’ve included John in the BCC line.

In this case, while John will know that he’s a BCC recipient and Peter is the primary recipient, Peter won’t know that I’ve sent a copy of the message to John.

Step 1

Log in to your email account and click “Compose” to open the Compose window.

Step 2

Enter the email address of the original recipient in the To field of the new email. You can separate multiple addresses for a long list of recipients using a comma, space, or by pressing the enter key.

To add recipients to the BCC list, click on the Bcc button on the header, as shown below.

Step 3

Once you’ve clicked the Bcc button, the BCC field will appear. Add the email ID of each hidden email recipient in the field. Now you can compose the message and click “Send.”

Note: Here, I’ve included Peter as the intended recipient, and I’ve put John on the BCC line.

On receiving my email, Peter won’t know that I’ve sent a copy of the message to John. However, John will see Peter as my primary recipient and himself as a BCC recipient.

Step 1

Log in to your Apple email ID online on icloud.com.

If you’re using an Apple device, launch the built-in macOS email client and click the New Email icon.

Step 2

In the New Message window that appears, click on the drop-down arrow located at the top and select the “Bcc Address Field.” The BCC field will now be displayed in your message header.

Step 3

Enter the email address of your primary recipient in the To field.

In the BCC field, type the email address of your recipient.

If you’ve got multiple addresses to send to or a long list of recipients, you can separate each with a comma, space, or by pressing the enter key.

Now, draft your message and then click on the Send Mail icon when finished.

Note: In this email, Peter is the intended recipient. And John is a part of the BCC line.

Here, John will know that he is a BCC recipient for this email and that Peter is the primary recipient. However, Peter would be unaware that I’ve sent a copy of the message to John.

Now that you know how to use the BCC field in Gmail, Outlook, and Apple Mail, I’ll cover a couple of scenarios when it’s perfect to use the BCC field:

Here are two scenarios in which the BCC field is helpful in an email chain:

BCC helps protect the privacy of your secondary recipients by keeping those email addresses confidential.

Alternatively, you can use it if you simply don’t want the recipients to know who else was added to the communication loop.

This can happen when:

In these cases, it’s helpful to use a BCC list.

Using the BCC email feature helps you maintain the privacy of your recipients because:

When it comes to introductory emails, it’s polite to include the person who introduced you in your response mail. This notifies them that you’ve followed up on the introduction.

However, adding them to the To or CC list makes them a recipient of all incoming messages to the original email.

By BCC’ing them, they’ll know that you’ve responded to the introduction. You can simply forward all relevant future emails to them if they require updates on your progress.

However, the BCC feature isn’t foolproof and has some drawbacks. Let’s look at the major issues you may face when using this method.

Here are three problems commonly associated with using the BCC method:

As all your BCC email addresses know that they aren’t the only recipients of your message, it could create a sense of suspicion. They’ll start questioning who else was copied to this mail, making it an inappropriate tool for formal conversations.

Whether it’s BCC in the Outlook email client, Gmail, or any other email provider, the BCC feature doesn’t allow you to personalize your emails. When composing an email, the original sender can only personalize it for your primary recipient.

Why? If you add the names of your BCC’d recipients to the email thread, they’re no longer hidden!

But without personalization, your BCC’d recipients will receive an email that omits their names and needs.

It’s far harder to make a connection with someone by simply copying them onto a generic email or adding them to an email conversation that wasn’t written specifically for them.

Additionally, adding them to the email conversation in secret could make them wonder why you added them in the first place.

Manually adding tons of email IDs to the same email is a tedious and error-prone process.

You can:

The list is endless! But is there a way to address all these issues and still benefit from using the BCC field? Of course, there is!

Just use GMass.

Using BCC in an email thread is useful when you want to maintain the privacy of recipients or when you want a colleague to stay informed of a conversation you’re having with someone.

However, using BCC is a risky move as it has many drawbacks, especially when it comes to email etiquette. Instead, using a tool like GMass is your best bet when you want to email a large group of different people separately.

GMass is powerful email outreach software that makes it incredibly simple to send bulk emails to multiple recipients from your Gmail inbox.

Its mass email features have made it a popular Chrome extension used by employees of large companies like Google, LinkedIn, Uber, and Twitter.

Individuals in charge of social societies such as clubs, schools, and churches, and anyone else can use GMass to send out mass emails to targeted audiences.

Essentially, if you send bulk email campaigns to multiple people, then GMass can help you.

And it’s a lot easier than using email BCC!

How? When you use GMass to send mass emails to multiple recipients, each sent email is delivered as an individual email. This way, your recipients won’t be able to see other recipients’ email addresses. (Learn more about this here.)

Here are three reasons why it’s better to use GMass over BCC emails:

Manually adding lots of people as recipients to your bulk email campaigns in a BCC or CC address list can be incredibly tiring. It’s also error-prone, as you may forget to add someone or mistakenly add the wrong ID to your email.

Fortunately, GMass gives you two convenient, error-free ways to include tons of recipients in seconds:

The Build Email List feature is GMass’ powerful way to identify email recipients automatically. Instead of manually searching through your address book, just enter a search term, and GMass will instantly pull up all the relevant addressee details from your email inbox!

Here’s a detailed guide on how to use this feature.

If you’re using Google Contacts, you can select the contacts you want as recipients, and GMass automatically adds them to your address field. It’s a far more straightforward method than manually going through lists of email addresses to identify the right people.

A major issue with BCC’d emails is that they’re devoid of any personalization.

Your only option is to create a general email for all the recipients or send your BCC recipients an email that only addresses the primary recipient.

As you can’t address each BCC’d recipient personally, you’re sacrificing your chances of making a personal connection with them.

Some of them might even mark your email as spam!

Fortunately, GMass offers settings for the automatic personalization of your emails.

You can add email personalization variables, such as:

GMass uses the recipient’s email address and other data to find the personalization values and automatically adds them to each email addressed to that recipient.

It also provides you other features such as:

1. Auto First Name Detection — the software accurately auto-detects someone’s first name from their email address. Using the {auto-first} personalization variable, you can automatically insert a recipient’s first name anywhere in your email.

2. Include personalized links — GMass will help you automatically include customized links or URLs in your emails.

For example, if you have to send unique files to each recipient in an email list, sending email attachments isn’t possible. But you can host these files in your server or a cloud drive like Dropbox or Google Drive and send customized links to those files through GMass.

3. Include personalized images — you can personalize an email by automatically including images unique to each recipient.

4. Customize entire paragraphs of text — you can also auto-personalize large blocks of text in your email message.

5. Add multi-word names — in addition to {FirstName} and {LastName}, you can use {Name1}, {Name2}, {Name3}, and {Name4} for multi-word names. Name1 corresponds to the first word in the name, Name2 to the second word, and so on.

You’ll naturally want your emails to reach the people’s inboxes at the right time.

And with GMass’ scheduling feature, this becomes a breeze.

You can craft your emails in advance and decide when to send them. When the time arrives, GMass will automatically send the emails for you. This way, you don’t have to be online when your emails go out.

You can also choose from a set of default times or enter a custom date and time to schedule your emails. If you need to reschedule your emails, you can find the related emails in your Drafts folder and edit them there.

Oh — and if you still want to BCC people on your emails with GMass, you can. You can even use mail merge to customize who gets BCCed on every single email. Here’s our guide to mail merge CC and BCC to show you how.

Using the BCC feature to send an email to multiple recipients is a thing of the past. It’s impractical, time-consuming, and risky.

Why settle for that when you have modern tools to do the job for you?

With innovative mail-merge programs like GMass, you can quickly draft, send, and manage mass emails in seconds.

Why not try GMass today and get the benefits of the BCC field and more with none of its drawbacks?