What if you don't want a recipient's name on the To line? If you want to send a message to someone, but you don't want the other recipients to see that person's name, you can use the Bcc box. Bcc stands for blind carbon copy.

To display the Bcc box, you use commands inside the open message. Once you display the Bcc box, it will be available in all new messages that you create until you choose not to show it.

Which command you use to display Bcc will vary depending on your choice of e-mail editor:

• If you're using Microsoft Office Word as your e-mail editor (which is the default), you'll use one method. We've included an animated example of this method, above. Click the Play button on the left to see it.
• If you're using Outlook as your e-mail editor, you would add the Bcc box by clicking Bcc Field on the View menu in the message, as we've shown below.

  

Not sure which editor you're using? We've included steps to check in the Practice session at the end of this lesson and in the Quick Reference Card at the end of this course.

Note   While Bcc is convenient and has its advantages, you should be aware that a number of people who send spam think it's convenient too — and for that reason, messages to Bcc'd recipients often get filtered out as junk if the recipients are using such filtering. If you use Bcc, be sure that the recipients have included you on their safe lists so that your message isn't filtered out as junk.