Probably only us oldsters know that CC: stands for the time-honored “carbon copy” for business correspondence. But we don’t need to sigh over those faint, smudged carbon copies because the e-revolution brought us something much more exciting: BCC‘s. That stands for “blind carbon copies”, or “don’t tell him but I sent her a copy” (or vice versa, of course, to be inclusive. )
So what to use when, how to use the “to” field, and what do your choices look like to your recipients?
In short, every recipient email address you enter into the “to” and “CC” fields will be able to see each other. The email addresses you add to the “BCC” field will not be visible to the “to” and “CC” recipients or the other “BCC” recipients. Here’s what to keep in mind:
- To: enter the email addresses of the people the email is specifically targeted to
- CC: enter the email addresses of people you want to know about the email, remembering that everyone involved will have access to these email addresses
- BCC: enter the email addresses of the people you want to know about the email but not announce to everyone else that they are getting a copy, and/or to not broadcast their email address to others, including others who might be in the bcc list.
The most important use, in this writer’s humble opinion, for BCC is whenever you’re sending an email to many recipients who don’t know each other. Using BCC is crucial in this situation. You don’t want to higgledy-piggledy give everyone on your [business/ personal/club/interest] list, everyone else’s email.
And as a recipient of same, what’s expected of you?
Email etiquette dictates that only the main recipients of the email appear in the “To” field. Primary recipients are more directly affected by the email and are typically expected to respond or take action. For CC recipients, on the other hand, responding and acting are generally optional. The key purpose of the CC field is to simply keep someone in the loop. It’s often called a “courtesy copy” for this reason.
Responding to emails based on how you rank:
CC’d individuals will receive all additional responses to the email, assuming the “Reply All” function is used. BCC’d recipients do not receive additional emails unless you choose to forward them.
The most important thing I learned when writing this post for you:
When typing your reply to an email, start by DELETING the person’s email address. Then write your reply. That way, deciding to send that overcomplicated/ incorrect/ snarky reply will be your choice as you re-enter the recipient(s) name(s), rather than a hasty decision you’ll regret 30 seconds later.
Info in this post from, and more info available, at
STUG 