Oftentimes at my job I am tasked with sending an email to our whole company. While I’ve made it easier on myself by putting all of our employees in ‘groups’ (a lesson for another post), I still always make sure that I’m not A) sending cluttered emails with 50+ email addresses in the ‘to’ field, and B) sharing people’s email addresses with others without their permission.

Realistically, in my case, sharing email addresses would probably not be an issue. We all work together. However, there are times when I need to email two people… but I want to hide one of the recipients from the other.

For example, I might be emailing a client some information about a transaction. I want to also send the information to our office admin, but I don’t need the client to see the admin’s email address or wonder, ‘who is this person receiving my information?’ This creates unneeded confusion.

On the other side of the coin, if I am sending a company-wide email, I don’t need every email address of every agent showing up in the heading of the email. This is for two reasons.

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Reason 1: it looks cluttered. Once you master the art of Bcc, it becomes clear to you who out there hasn’t.

Reason 2: you prevent replies from going to the wrong person. Let’s take a look at this.

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Bcc stands for ‘blind carbon copy,’ and Cc stands for ‘carbon copy.‘ If you place an email address in the Cc field, that person will recieve a copy of the email, and the recipient in the ‘to’ field, will see their email address in the email heading.

If you place an email in the Bcc field, that person will receive a copy of the email, but the recipient in the ‘to’ field will NOT see their email address anywhere.

• Using Cc: If the recipient hits ‘reply all,’ their response will go to the original sender AND the names in the Cc field.

• Using Bcc: If the recipient hits ‘reply all,’ their response will go only to the original sender, NOT anyone in the Bcc field.

Let’s imagine two examples where I’m asked to send a company-wide newsletter.

In example 1, I add everyone’s email address in the ‘to’ field (or Cc field. It doesn’t matter in this case). I send the email letting everyone know if they have any questions, they can email me.

As soon as the email goes out, responses start coming in. However, since I put everyone’s email address in the ‘to’ field, any time someone clicks ‘reply all,’ everyone in the company receives the response. We are all so conditioned to ‘reply all’ that it is likely this will happen.

While responding to the whole group might encourage collaboration, not everyone understands that their reply will be seen by everyone in the company. This could be a problem if someone shares sensitive information.

In example 2, I put my own email address in the ‘to’ field, and add everyone else’s email address in the Bcc field. I send the email letting everyone know if they have any questions, they can email me.

(You can also leave the ‘to’ field blank, you’ll just need to confirm with your email program that you meant to do that.)

I get a copy immediately (since I sent one to myself… remember, I put my own email address in the ‘to’ field) and so does everyone else in the company. As replies come in, they come only to me, even if the sender selects ‘reply all.’ With Bcc, ‘reply all’ will reply only to the people you can see.

Another example where Bcc would be important for privacy reasons is if you are emailing a mailing list. If you are reaching out to clients, none of whom know each other, you want to keep their information private. You don’t want John Smith seeing Mary Jones’ email address at the top of an email you sent him.

Reason number 1, this gives away your contact list to potential competitors.

Number 2, this gives both John and Mary a higher chance of receiving spam in the future, as a number of people they don’t know now have access to their email addresses.

Hopefully this makes the differences between Cc and Bcc a little clearer. Please let me know if you have any questions aout the topic or any suggestions for future posts!