If you're emailing a large number of recipients, using bcc is the best professional practice. Typically, a long list of recipients includes individuals who don't know each other and may not want to publicize their email addresses. bcc also improves the readability of your content by hiding the mailing list.
BCC Yourself on emails that you need to follow up on
simply BCC yourself on emails that you are sending out and you want/need to follow up on. After the email is sent, you will also receive a copy in your Inbox. Because you have BCC'ed yourself, the other recipients will not know that you were also a recipient.
Generally, this practice is frowned upon as it may deceive someone into incorrectly thinking their communication is private. It's also easy for BCC to backfire when used in this way. If a BCC recipient responds to all, the primary recipients of the email will know they were blind copied.
The worst use of the blind carbon copy is to passively aggressively ensnare a coworker. This kind of BCC abuse crops up when employees resort to using the BCC function as a way of indirectly tattling on their coworkers, sucking up to their boss, or otherwise engaging in dysfunctional workplace hijinks.
For security and privacy reasons, it is best to use the Blind Carbon Copy (BCC) feature when sending an email message to a large number of people. When you place email addresses in the BCC field of a message, those addresses are invisible to the recipients of the email.
Using bcc has potential disadvantages and risks, such as using it to hide something from someone, exclude someone from an email thread without informing them, reply to an email without realizing that you are replying to everyone, and using it inconsistently or arbitrarily.
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.
When your recipients don't know each other: “Bcc” protects the privacy of recipients. This is very important if your mailing list is made up of strangers who don't know each other. For impersonal emails that don't warrant responses: When sending an impersonal email, “Bcc” is suitable.
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.
recipients of the email. If a BCC recipient hits reply all, the original sender will receive the reply and other normal recipients will get a CC.
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.
Anyone in the bcc field will receive a copy of the email, but bcc will hide their email address from all other recipients, and they won't be able to reply to everyone who received the email.
If you receive an intro you should move the person who introduced you to the BCC (blind copy) line in your response. That way they know you responded but any follow up emails where somebody hits “reply to all” will avoid copying them on the follow up — freeing up that person's email box.
Figure out who you BCC'd.
As you know, recipients can't tell who you included in the BCC field, or even if you used the BCC field at all. But that doesn't mean you can't. To see who you BCC'd in a previous email, just open the Sent mail folder and open the message.
The recipients you add in the Bcc field are invisible to all other recipients (under To or Cc). This option is useful if you prefer to keep the email addresses private. It also means that the bcc'ed recipients will not receive any reply emails from the other recipients, even if they select “Reply all”.
Beyond that, don't ever let others eavesdrop by using BCC.
In every other case, when you email someone and BCC someone else, you're being dishonest--like it or not. You are emailing Person X and without them knowing, letting Person Y eavesdrop on your conversation.
However, if a BCC recipient replies (or reply all) to a message on which they have been BCC'd, it doesn't hide the recipients in the original message depending on which option was used to reply to the message (i.e. Reply = includes all original TO recipients or Reply All = all original message recipients.
If you still feel that you need to loop more people in than just the sender, simply use “cc” (carbon copy) or “bcc” (blind carbon copy) and send away. When you use bcc, you can let everybody know: “Thanks for the intro, Abby! I'm moving you to bcc to save your inbox.”
Open Gmail and sign in. Open a new email and write the message you intend to send to your contact list. Click BCC in the top-right of your Compose window. Add all the email addresses to which you intend to send the message.
How does Bcc work in Gmail? When you use the Bcc feature in Gmail, the recipients added to the Bcc field will receive the email just like any other recipient. However, they won't be able to see the email addresses of other Bcc recipients, only the sender and the recipients added to the "To" and "Cc" fields.
Reply only sends the new message to the original sender. Attachments are not included. Reply all sends the new message to the original sender and all other recipients on the To and Cc lines. Attachments are not included.