BCC: Why It Is Needed and How to Create It in a Mail Client

A blind carbon copy (Bcc) is a special feature in an email service. It is used when you send an email to multiple recipients and it’s essential for some addresses to remain unrevealed.

In email clients, you can select not only the primary recipient but also additional recipients. The latter are indicated in Cc (carbon copy) or Bcc (blind carbon copy).

In this article, we will discuss what a Bcc is, why it is used, how it differs from a Cc, and how to implement it.

Cc vs Bcc: difference between them

Carbon copy

It is sent to those recipients who do not communicate directly, but should see the correspondence.

For example, you face problems with a program at your work, and you turn to technical support for help. The "To" field specifies the support service mailbox, and the "Carbon copy" field specifies the boss. The manager needs to know why your activity has stalled and track the progress of events.

The support staff will see that the message is marked with a copy to the organization's boss.

It is created to allow additional recipients to view the correspondence, while the main recipient does not see those who are in the blind copy.

This email format is useful for maintaining the confidentiality of addresses, for example, of consumers, or for main recipients not to know about additional recipients.

How a letter with Bcc looks like

Let's test this function. Let’s create a message and select the main recipient 1. In the Bcc field, let’s indicate the recipient 2.

Creating an email via Gmail service

After sending, let's check the mailbox of recipient 1. Having opened you can see only one addressee.

Recipient 2 can’t see the address of recipient 1.

Then let’s view the email in the inbox of recipient 2 who was indicated in the Bcc field. Both recipients are visible.

In Gmail service “Bcc” field opens below the “To” field. After clicking on it, you can insert the address of the undisclosed recipient. Although, it is important to admit that not only previously mentioned Gmail, but all the email services have this feature.

Conclusion

A blind carbon copy (Bcc) is created for sending a message not only to the main recipient but also to other recipients. The feature is that the main recipient does not know about the message being sent to other users. This is a basic function that is available in every email service.

This tool is useful when you need to hide contact information or when the main recipients need to know who else is on the mailing list.