Keep it a sweet secret
Question: I have noticed in some e-mails I receive that the list of the recipients shows “undisclosed recipients” instead of the complete list of addresses it was sent to. I too would like to be able to do this, but don’t know how. Can you help?
Answer: This trick is a good idea because, when you e-mail lots of people in one message, most appreciate it if you don’t show their addresses to all the other recipients.
When e-mail gets forwarded over and over again – as in the case of jokes or even useful bulletins—you never know where those e-mail addresses are going to land, or who else will see them.
Some people will help themselves to those e-mail addresses so they can send unsolicited e-mails (“spam”) to everyone on the list.
Hiding your friends’ and colleagues’ e-mail addresses from the internet is good net etiquette and common courtesy. Here’s how to do it:
1. In your e-mail program, go into your address book and create an entry called Undisclosed Recipients.
2. Assign your own e-mail address to the entry.
3. Then create a new e-mail and in the “To:” field, type undisclosed recipients—your e-mail program will pull the entry from the e-mail address book and address the message back to you. This is like sending the e-mail to yourself.
4. Then use the Bcc: field to enter all the other e-mail addresses you want to send the e-mail to. Bcc means “blind carbon copy”. The addresses in this field will receive a copy of the e-mail message, but no-one who receives the e-mail will know who else received it. In fact, they won’t even know that anyone else received it. That information is not included in the header (the technical addressing information) of the e-mail message.
It may be tricky to find the Bcc field in some e-mail programs.
– In Outlook Express, create a new e-mail and click the View menu, and then select All Headers.
– In Netscape Messenger, create a new message. Enter the To: address. Click the blank line below that. Another To: will appear below the first. Click it and a menu will drop down. Click Bcc:. Then enter your Bcc e-mail addresses to the right of it.
– In Outlook 2000, create a new e-mail message. Click View, then click the Bcc: item in the menu to display that field.
– In Outlook 2002, create a new e-mail. Click the To: field next to the address field. A grey box will appear. Select your Bcc recipients and click the Bcc button to the right.
MORE E-MAIL HELP:
How to restore or read archived e-mails
How to fix your return e-mail address
How to avoid unwanted e-mail (aka spam)
How to fix broken links sent in e-mail
How to create an e-mail auto-signature
How to backup or move your e-mail
How to back-up your e-mail address books
How to create an autoresponder for Outlook Express
