Sending, replying, forwarding email
Bcc: Blind carbon copy

Options for sending Internet email

All Internet email programs provide three different fields for supplying recipient email addresses when creating new mail, replying, and forwarding mail. At least one (any) of these fields must be populated with a properly formatted email address in order for mail to be sent (includes replies and forwards).

• To: Primary recipient(s) list. All recipients in the To field are visible to all recipients of the message.
• Cc: (Carbon copy) Secondary recipient(s) list. All recipients in the Cc field are visible to all recipients of the message.
• Bcc: (Blind carbon copy) List of recipients that are NOT visible to other recipients of the message.

More technical information can be found in the following sections of RFC 2822: Internet Message Format.

Advantages of using the Bcc field

• Privacy: If a group of recipients do not know eachother or have nothing in common, etc., respect the recipients' privacy by not "advertising" their names/email addresses to all of the other recipients.
• Security: If a group of recipients' email addresses are not visible to oneanother, there's no way a malware infection on one of the recipient's computers can harvest the recipients' email addresses from the email and use them to further propogate spam, viruses, adware, etc.

Enabling the Bcc field in various mail programs

Some mail programs have the Bcc field enabled already; others do not. The information below provides instructions on how to enable it in various mail programs that do not already have it enabled. Once enabled, it will be available for all subsequent messages, so you will not need to repeate the steps every time you want to use the Bcc field.

• Windows Mail / Outlook Express (Windows)
  1. Create a new message (or reply to or forward an existing message).
  2. Click on View then All Headers.
• Outlook 2007 (Windows)
  1. Create a new message (or reply to or forward an existing message).
  2. Click the Options tab.
  3. In the Fields section, click Show Bcc.
• Outlook 2002/2003 (Windows)
  1. Create a new message (or reply to or forward an existing message).
  2. If you use Microsoft Word as your email editor:
     Click the drop-down arrow to the right of the Options button, and click Bcc.
     If you do NOT use Microsoft Word as your email editor, click on View then Bcc.
• Outlook 2000 (Windows)
  1. Create a new message (or reply to or forward an existing message).
  2. Click View then Bcc.
• Network Tallahassee Webmail (http://mail.nettally.com)
  1. Create a new message (or reply to or forward an existing message).
  2. Click Options near the top of the New Message pane.
  3. Select Show Bcc then click Done.