*Disclaimer & request: I’ve spent the last 45 minutes composing this post, trying to make it as clear as I can. I may or may not have succeeded in my attempt. But **please **read carefully. If something isn’t clear, by all means, ask me. My two questions are at the end. *
I got this email a little while ago (names and addresses changed, of course):
I sometimes send out group emails and put my own name/address in the “TO:” field (which this sender did, i.e. sending from one of her addresses to a different address of hers, no problem there), and putting all the recipients in the “BCC:” [blind copy] field to hide the recipients’ addresses from each other. In my mind that is the principal use of the BCC field, namely, to hide the names of the recipients listed in that field.
These are my two questions:
Why is the BCC field showing up at all in this email when I’m looking at it in Outlook Express? When I go to my webmail, the BCC is not showiing.
Does the fact that my name is the only one listed in the BCC field mean that I was the only person to receive this email (besides the sender at her alternate address), in spite of the sender’s attempt to make it look like I was one of a hidden group of recipients? The sender couldn’t have known that I would get a peek at the BCC field, right? (Okay, that was an extra question…)
The display of the bcc field is up to the client - it also will only ever show ‘your’ address - it will not show any others copied in that field (to the recipients, the senders copy will) -
the bcc even in your ‘full copy’ (where you look at headers, etc ) will only contain your address by the time it gets to you -so there is no way for a recipient to easily find out who else it went to under the implimentations I am familiar with.
Your webmail probably doesn’t display that header by default (there are lots of headers that just make little sense to display). Look for a “show headers” option.
Probably not. If you could look at the BCC field and see all of the other BCCed addresses, it would defeat the purpose of the BCC field. Mail clients being set up to show the BCC field is not uncommon.
The purpose of the BCC field is not to hide the fact that you were on the mailing list. Of course you were on the mailing list – the mail is in your mailbox.
The purpose is to hide who else was on the mailing list. The people on the regular “To” and “CC” lines can all see each other’s e-mail addresses, but they can’t see the ones on the BCC list, and the people on the BCC list can’t see ones other than their own.
The first time I got an email with the BCC field not visible, I thought something went wrong with the email at my job. I got this email that had my name nowhere- not on the TO line, not on the CC line and there was no BCC. It was right after a merger and everything including our email addresses changed. Lots of people ended up with multiple email addresses (first.last@job, first.last2@job etc) and it was fixed by forwarding all the mail to one address. I thought that there had been a mistake and someone else’s mail was being sent to me.
When I get an email where I’m not in the TO list, I assume it’s a BBC, but I can see where making that field visible so each recipient will see his/her own name would head off any confusion. I had no idea that option was available.
Me either. Ignorance fought again; this time ignorance I didn’t even know I had, as I don’t ever see the BBC field. I like starting the new year by learning something so thanks for asking, ThelmaLou.
I thought it was standard behaviour to show your address in the BCC field. Otherwise, as others have said, you’d be thinking “Why is this mail from person X to themselves (or to person Y) showing up in my mailbox?”
I just tested it on Gmail. I have to addresses, call them HOME and WORK. I sent a mail from HOME to HOME and BCC’d WORK.
In my WORK email, it shows up thus:
From: HOME
To: HOME
BCC: WORK
Strangely, in my HOME inbox (not the Sent Mail folder), it shows up exactly the same: it reveals the BCC: WORK even though the two addresses are not linked. Any idea why this should be the case? I assume it is only revealing the full info because the HOME account was also the sender, but it’s slightly worrying.