I have a long blog post started about when to use Bcc versus Cc but I realized it could be broken down even further.

In all email programs, you are given the option of ‘to,’ ‘Cc,’ and ‘Bcc’ when addressing an email.

The ‘to’ field is just as you’d expect. This is the standard address field when emailing someone. If you are emailing a single person, this is the field you need.

When adding multiple recipients, sometimes the Cc and the Bcc field come in handy.

If you are emailing a group of people whom you wish to collaborate with, and all members of the group are aware of the other members, you can continue to use the ‘to’ field for all email addresses.

If you are emailing one person specifically, but you’d like others to have a copy of the interaction, then you’ll need to be familiar with the Cc and Bcc fields.

In simple terms, the Cc field can be used when it doesn’t matter if all recipients know that a copy was sent to each person.

The Bcc field would be used to ensure that the main recipient does not know that a copy was sent to another person.

For example –

If I want to send John Smith an email detailing my weekend plans, but I also want to let his wife know what is going on (but indicate to her that I am sending her a copy only, and do not expect a reply), I would put John Smith’s email address in the ‘to’ field, and his wife’s in the ‘Cc’ field.

If my boss asked me to send an email to employee John Smith detailing his recent shortcomings at work, I might choose to Bcc my boss so he knows the email was sent, but not let John see that it was sent to the boss as well. We don’t want John getting more upset than needed, or feeling like he needs to reach out to the boss directly. In this case, John would go in the ‘to’ field, and my boss would go in the ‘Bcc’ field. John would never know the boss got a copy.

Do you use the Cc or Bcc fields in your work often? Leave a comment and let me know!

In my next post I will detail some other uses for Bcc in a bit more detail. Stay tuned!