Microsoft Outlook 2000 Tips – What’s BCC?

For people who are familiar with business correspondence, the term “cc:" is an old friend. A “carbon copy" or “complimentary copy" of a document was sent to someone in addition to the original recipient, usually as a way of providing information about a given situation, or for proving that an individual did actually send the particular document in question. The terminology carries over into electronic correspondence as well. When sending email, most people understand that clicking on that “cc:" button lets one include the email addresses of individuals to whom a copy of the email message should be sent. Each person who receives the email sees the name and/or email address of the sender and all recipients, including those who were “cc:"ed. So what’s the deal with “bcc:"?

A “blind complimentary copy" works in the exact same way that a complimentary copy does. Anyone included in the “bcc:" field receives a copy of the email just like those in the “To:" and “cc:" fields. The big difference (and it is a VERY big difference) is this: Nobody who receives the email message sees either a name or an email address for anyone included in the “bcc:" field. This is most definitely “stealth email". The message goes out, but nobody knows exactly who got it.

If you think about it for a minute, you can see some practical applications. You may want to send an email to several people, but someone may not want his email address spread around to people he doesn’t know (and doesn’t want to hear from when someone inadvertently hits the “Reply to all" button when responding to your message!). You may need to email a co-worker and want your boss to know about the situation, letting him “read over your shoulder" as the correspondence occurs without your co-worker knowing. And of course, there’s that inspirational email you received from Uncle Joe that you just have to pass on to everyone in your address book (but we won’t talk about that one right now).

While the “bcc:" option is a feature included in Microsoft Office 2000, it’s not intuitive as to how to use it, or how to even activate it (the field is not automatically included when creating a new document). Fortunately, it’s easy to turn this feature on and off, once you know where to look. Here’s what you do:

1) If it’s not already running, start Outlook. Open up a new email message.

2) In the menu bar, click on View. In the dropdown menu that appears, look for the item labeled Bcc Field. Click on it to turn on the checkmark next to it.

3) You’ll notice a new button, labeled Bcc:, displayed right under the Cc: button at the top of the window.

That’s it. The good part about this is that you only have to go through the setup process once. All future messages you compose will have the “bcc:" option included automatically. You can now share Uncle Joe’s inspirational messages in confidence, knowing you’re not sharing email addresses as well!

About the author: Danny Davids has over 25 years of experience in computer support, network administration, and computer consulting.