Definition of a BCC Email in Outlook Express

BCC, in Outlook Express or any other email program, means "Blind Carbon Copy." When you send an email, the email address of the recipient under the BCC field is not visible to others. Only the email addresses placed under "To" and "CC" are visible. The BCC feature is ideal to use to protect the privacy of the recipient's email address.

Address Fields

The two most common address fields in Outlook Express are "To" and "CC". Placing email addresses under "To" means that the message is intended directly for the recipients. Placing addresses under "CC," or Carbon Copy, means that the message is not intended directly to them, but they should at least be informed or kept in the loop. The names and/or email addresses of those in the "To" and "CC" fields are visible to all recipients. The BCC, or Blind Carbon Copy, option means that the message is intended for particular users to see, like the CC option--but these recipients are informed without others knowing the email address.

Purpose of BCC

The main purpose of BCC that sets it apart from CC is that email addresses placed under this field are not visible to other recipients. This prevents others who do not need to know your email address from obtaining it. Spammers usually search the Internet for email addresses to spam by checking the "To" and "CC" fields, which are not hidden. Imagine if one message is sent to 20 recipients, all placed under the "To" or "CC" fields, and each of those recipients forwarded the message to 20 more--hundreds of emails will be exposed. So, if you forward an inspiring story to all your friends, it's better if you place their email addresses under BCC. If they decide to forward your message to somebody else, your other friends' email addresses won't be exposed. This limits the risk of spammers getting a lot of email addresses.

When to Use BCC

BCC is useful if you want to keep the identity of a recipient private from everyone else. This is useful in many ways in a work environment. For example, say you have one position open in your company and you have a list of candidates you'd like to schedule for testing. You can email everyone about the test schedule and venue without exposing the email addresses of others vying for the same position. Also, if an office-mate is being unethical or rude to you in email, you can BCC your boss when you reply so you have a witness of your office-mate's attitude to you.

Additionally, if you have an email that needs a response from everyone, you can place your email address under the "To" field and everyone else's under "BCC". This prevents anyone from replying to all when it should have only been sent to you.

Best Practice

If you are going to email someone through BCC, it is best to inform them you are doing so. Some users have activated rules that scan and sort messages into respective folders by checking the "To" or "CC" fields. If your message to the recipient was sent sent through BCC, it will not be sorted into the user's predefined folders and it might go unread.

Considerations

BCC is a useful address field for Outlook Express, since it gives you the option to hide the email address of the recipient from everyone else. You should also know when to limit the use of BCC. Repeatedly blasting emails to everyone through BCC may mark you as a spammer, especially if the "To" and "CC" fields are always left blank. Sending emails through BCC is a known method of spammers. To that end, some email security software programs consider emails sent through BCC as junk. Also, email providers have a limit of email addresses it can accommodate for sending a single message. Some may limit it as high as 100; others may limit it to 10 or 15. This is to prevent your email provider from being tagged as a spam server. Email addresses are counted as part of the limit, whether they are placed in the "To", "CC" or "BCC" field.

References

• Microsoft: What Do CC and Bcc Mean?
• Microsoft: Use Bcc Effectively