When sending an email to a group of people (recipients) I recommend using the BCC feature of your email app to (1) keep those email addresses private, and just as important (2) to prevent their responses going to everyone instead of just to you because many folks use the Reply All feature when responding.

The Basics

However, before we get started, let’s get familiar with a few terms commonly associated with the BCC feature.

Here’s a Breakdown of the Terms I’ll Be Using in This Article:

  1. Recipient: the person who receives your email.
  2. Primary recipient: refers to the main addressee of your email (the person addressed in the To field).
  3. BCC/CC recipient: additional recipients who receive copies of your email (they are not addressed in the To field but the CC or BCC fields).
  4. Email list/mailing list: a large group of email addresses to which you send an email.

Now that you know what these terms mean, let’s dive deeper into what BCC means.

What Is BCC in Email?

The abbreviation BCC stands for “Blind Carbon Copy” or “Blind Courtesy Copy,” and it’s a feature that helps you send an email to multiple email addresses. The term “carbon copy” comes from carbon paper used to make copies of original documents.

When you enter a recipient email address in the BCC field, that address receives a blind copy of the email. And the primary recipient of the BCC’d mail will not be aware of the BCC’d recipient.

But wait, what does that mean?

In simpler terms, an address included in the BCC field is “blind” or hidden from every other email recipient. Although a BCC’d recipient can see the direct recipient, they can’t tell who else was BCC’d in the email.

However, while your BCC recipient can’t tell who else has been added, they will know that they were BCC’d in the email.

*How?*The BCC label lets them know that they weren’t the onlyBCC recipients of your email.