You must have heard about the terms – CC and BCC in context of e-mails, and probably would have used the CC field for sending e-mails to many people at the same time. CC stands for Carbon Copy and this field is used for sending a copy of any e-mail to more people other than the actual recipient. CC is very much used in the corporate culture where-in e-mails are send to the intended person and its copy is sent to the supervisor of the recipient to keep him informed. As far as e-mail etiquettes are concerned the CC filed should be used only for people who should be aware of this communication and they might or might not directly reply to this e-mail. However if you have to send an e-mail to many people at the same time then do not use CC feature but add multiple names in the ‘TO’ field only. Now since we understand the logic and use of CC field let us see what is BCC.

BCC stands for Blind Carbon Copy and it is also used for writing recipients’ e-mail addresses but with a catch. All the recipients whose names are in the BCC list cannot come to know who all others are. For example you can easily come to know to whom all the mail was Carbon Copied, but you cannot know the same if it was sent through the BCC field. Thus it is a good way to keep anyone secretly informed about the communication without lettings others know about the same. BCC field is by default not available in almost all the e-mail clients and needs to be added before it could be used. Now let us see how to enable the BCC field in various applications.

Microsoft Outlook 2007

Step 1: Click on ‘New’ to open a new message window

Step 2: Click on the ‘Options’ ribbon

Step 3: Click on the ‘BCC’ icon

Microsoft Outlook 2003

Step 1: Compose a new e-mail message to open a new e-mail message window

Step 2: click on ‘View’ in the new e-mail message window

Step 3: click on the ‘BCC option’ in the ‘View’ menu

Microsoft Outlook Express

Step 1: click on ‘Create Mail’ button to open a new mail message window

Step 2: click on the ‘View’ menu in the new e-mail message window

Step 3: click on ‘All Headers’ option in the ‘View’ menu

Mac OS X Mail

Step 1: Compose a new e-mail message

Step 2: click on the ‘View’ menu in the menu bar of the new mail message

Step 3: click on the ‘BCC Address Field’ option in the ‘View’ menu. This selection will remain as it is until you de-select this option

Yahoo! Mail

Step 1: Click on ‘Compose New Message’ to open a new message page

Step 2: On this page next to the ‘To’ field you will get an option to add the BCC field

Gmail

Step 1: Click on ‘Compose New Message’ to open a new message page

Step 2: On this page next to the ‘To’ field you will get an option to add the BCC field