You can hide the recipient names in your e-mail messages by listing them in the Bcc field. If you decide to use Bcc (which stands for blind carbon copy), here are some things to keep in mind.

To learn more about what Bcc does, see What do Cc and Bcc mean in a mail message?

First things first

If you are having trouble using Bcc, here are a few tips:

• Start from inside a message  The commands for showing or hiding the Bcc field are available only from inside a new message.
• Know your e-mail editor type  How you display the Bcc field depends on which e-mail editor you use.

  For more information, see Lesson: Use Bcc to keep it off the To line or Show or hide the Bcc field.

Best practices for using Bcc

• Pave the way  Before you use Bcc, make sure your intended recipient is expecting it. That person may need to take steps to establish you as a safe sender (or a safe recipient, if your name will be on the To field of the Bcc message).

  Why is this necessary? Using Bcc is a favorite technique of spammers. Therefore, a lot of junk e-mail filters will flag messages that use Bcc as being junk. So if your intended recipient hasn't added your name to the Safe Senders List in Outlook, your message may go straight to the Junk E-mail folder or its equivalent.

  For more information about setting up the junk e-mail filter in Outlook, see Add a name to your Safe Senders or Safe Recipients List or Lesson: Get familiar with your junk e-mail filter.

• Think before you use Bcc for a distribution list  People who use rules to sort their e-mail into folders will be inconvenienced if you list the name of the distribution list in the Bcc field. Because their rules depend on the name of the distribution list being in the To or Cc field, your message will not be sorted according to their rules.

  For more information about distribution lists, see Create a distribution list.

• Know your limits  Many e-mail service providers set limits for the number of names that can be in the To, Cc, and Bcc fields in a message. For example, your e-mail service provider may limit each message to a maximum of 100 e-mail addresses. If these addresses can be distributed among the To, Cc, and Bcc fields, remember that the names in the Bcc field will count toward your total limit. Ask your e-mail service provider about the policies for your account.

Ideas for using Bcc

• Keep the recipient list private  Bcc can help you be respectful of peoples’ privacy by keeping them in the loop without disclosing their identities. For example, if you send a job announcement to multiple people, you may want to use Bcc to keep the identities of the potential job seekers private.

  Tip  Consider using mail merge in Word as an alternative to Bcc. With mail merge, you can quickly send the same e-mail message to individual recipients. Mail merge allows you to do a mass mailing in such a way that there's just one name on the To line of the message.

• Help curb a conversation that has gone wild  Here is one situation in which using Bcc for a distribution list or a large number of names can be helpful.

  Suppose you send a message with a large number of people listed in the To field. The discussion starts to get lively, and everyone wants to give an opinion. The number of messages increases drastically because many recipients reply with the sentiment "please stop replying all to this message." The problem is that when they do this, they click Reply to All. One way to curb the use of the Reply to All option is to respond and put the name of the distribution list in the Bcc field. For example, you could click Reply, put only your name in the To field, move the distribution list to the Bcc field, and write a message similar to the following:

  "I appreciate peoples' thoughts on this issue. If you have further comments, please respond to me directly. (I have put this distribution list in the Bcc field to cut down on the reply-to-all messages.)"

  Tip  If you are sending a message to other people who use Outlook, you can prevent them from using Reply to All altogether. See Prevent e-mail message recipients from using Reply All or Forward for more information.

• Reduce spam  While people who send junk e-mail or spam may like to use Bcc, they won't like it if you use it. If you hide the recipients' names by listing them in the Bcc field, no one will be able to copy the recipients' e-mail addresses from your messages.