Question

What is the Bcc address field for?

Answer 1

Bcc means “blind carbon copy.” It lets you send a copy of an email to one or more people without showing their addresses to the other recipients.

Short breakdown
- To: main recipients (everyone sees these addresses).
- Cc: carbon copy — secondary recipients (everyone sees these addresses).
- Bcc: blind carbon copy — recipients are hidden from other recipients.

How it works (in simple terms)
- The mail server delivers to Bcc addresses, but those addresses are not placed in the visible header of the delivered message. That’s why other recipients can’t see who was Bcc’d.
- A Bcc recipient receives the message like any other, but other recipients won’t know they were included.

Common uses
- Send a message to many people without exposing their email addresses (privacy).
- Let someone discreetly see an exchange (e.g., a manager or yourself).
- Avoid long reply-all chains by Bcc’ing a person who doesn’t need to be in the discussion.

Important cautions and etiquette
- Don’t use Bcc to hide something unethical (e.g., secretly copying a colleague on sensitive or deceptive messages).
- A Bcc recipient who “Reply All” can accidentally reveal they were Bcc’d.
- For mass mailings, use a proper mailing list or mail-merge tool for personalization and to avoid spam filters.
- Some email clients show “Undisclosed recipients” in the To field when Bcc is used; behavior varies by client.

If you want, I can give examples of when to use Bcc and when not to.