Hide the list of recipients on an e-mail

I want to send an e-mail, but hide the e-mail addresses of the recipients. Is there a way to do this?

All e-mail software supports a standard e-mail featured called Blind Carbon Copy (Bcc for short), which allows the sender of an e-mail to hide the recipient list. By addressing an e-mail to yourself and placing all of the recipients in the BCC field, you’ll prevent all of those recipients from seeing each other’s addresses. Bcc does have one minor downfall though – the “Reply All” feature.

Adding e-mail addresses to Bcc in Outlook Express

1. Start composing a new message.
2. Click “View” and make sure there’s a check next to “All Headers”. If there isn’t, click once on “All Headers”.
3. Locate the “Bcc” field, underneath “To” and above “Subject”.
4. Enter each hidden e-mail address into the Bcc field.
5. Enter your own e-mail address in the “To:” field.
6. Finish composing your message, and send it off.

Adding e-mail addresses to Bcc in Outlook

1. Start composing a new message.
2. Locate the “Bcc” field, underneath “To” and above “Subject”.
• If you do not see “Bcc”, click “View” and select “Bcc field”.
3. Enter each hidden e-mail address into the Bcc field.
4. Enter your own e-mail address in the “To:” field.
5. Finish composing your message, and send it off.

Adding e-mail addresses to Bcc in Mozilla Thunderbird

1. Start composing a new message.
2. Click on “To:” and change it to “Bcc:”.
3. Enter each hidden e-mail address into the Bcc field.
4. Add another line with “To:” and enter only your e-mail address.
5. Finish composing your message, and send it off.

Adding e-mail addresses to Bcc in Apple Mail

1. Start composing a new message.
2. Enter your own e-mail address in the “To:” field.
3. If you do not see “Bcc:” located above “Subject”, click on “View”, then click on “Bcc Field”.
4. Enter each hidden e-mail address into the Bcc field.
5. Finish composing your message, and send it off.

The potential downfall of Bcc: “Reply All”

It is common practice to use Bcc only for recipients who understand that their e-mail is hidden from all the other recipients. This is because if joe@example.com is on a Bcc and responds to the e-mail with the “Reply All” button, his e-mail address will be revealed to everyone else who received the message. For this reason, only use Bcc for people whose addresses require anonymity. Any other recipients who don’t specifically require Bcc status should be put in the “To” or “Cc” fields.