bcc mail: how to hide the recipients of emails?

cc mail hide
cc mail hide

Last updated: August 27, 2023

When you send an email to multiple recipients (some do not know each other), it is recommended not to display the email address of each one.

In general, when you send emails to several recipients, you write their email addresses in the field. Cc which means Carbon Copy, field in which the email addresses are visible to all recipients. It may be an acceptable solution if each of these people know each other.

However if you use the same procedure for send e-mails to people who do not know each other, this could be very little appreciated by the recipients.

Fortunately, there is a simple solution to satisfy every party and it's called Bcc mail, Copy  invisible.

What is the difference between Cc and Bcc?

  • Cc allows you to send the same message to several people, by entering their addresses in the Cc field.
  • Bcc also allows you to send the same message to several people, but the addresses of the recipients appearing in the Bcc field are not visible to the recipients of the message ni pour ceux à qui le message est transféré. C’est une hidden copy.
Please note:: Enter all the addresses of the recipients in the field Bcc leaving the field " à »Empty or only filled with your own email address is often interpreted by mail servers as a attempt to spam and therefore your email may be filtered and never be received by the recipients.

To get around this risk, I will show you how to use your own email address as "Undisclosedrecipients" in the "to" field and add the other email addresses in the Bcc field, in this way you can send your message securely.

Send an email by hiding the recipients in Outlook

  • Ouvrez Outlook et cliquez sur le menu « Atteindre » puis « Contact »

  • In the page that opens, click on "new contact" at the top left
  • In the "Full Name" text field, enter a name that will appear in the "To" field. You can call it to imitate our Anglo-Saxon friends "Undisclosedrecipients" or any name that comes to mind.
  • Then enter your own email address in the "Email address" field, click, save and close.
  • Now click on " Mail »In the navigation bar
  • On the page that appears, click on "New mail"
  • Click on "to" in the window that appears
  • Select the new contact that you have just created, that is to say “Undisclosedrecipients” in our case, click again on “to” and then on “Ok” again.
  • You will notice that there is no Bcc field on the email window. You need to add it by clicking on the “Options” tab and clicking on Bcc again.
  • Field Bcc mail now appears in your message field. You can now insert each email address either by clicking on Bcc and selecting addresses from your contacts or entering them manually.

You can now send your messages by hiding the recipients.

Info: some ISPs (internet service providers) sometimes limit sending to only 20 recipients. It is then safer if you have many contacts to send several emails.

Send an email hiding recipients on Gmail / Hotmail / Yahoo

The procedure is in all respects similar to the previous one except that the option Bcc is directly available in the message window.

Now you will be able to share content and no longer email addresses.