Blind Carbon Copy facts for kids
When you send an email, you usually put the main person's address in the "To" field. Sometimes, you might want to send a copy to someone else. This is where "Carbon Copy" (Cc) and "Blind Carbon Copy" (Bcc) come in handy.
Blind Carbon Copy (often shortened to Bcc) is a special way to send copies of an email to people without letting the other recipients know they received a copy. It's like sending a secret copy!
Contents
What is Blind Carbon Copy (Bcc)?
The Bcc field in an email allows you to send a copy of your message to one or more people. The important thing about Bcc is that the email addresses of the people in the Bcc field are hidden from everyone else.
- The person in the "To" field will not see who is Bcc'd.
- People in the "Cc" (Carbon Copy) field will also not see who is Bcc'd.
- Even other people in the Bcc field cannot see each other's email addresses.
Only the sender of the email and the specific person who received the Bcc copy will know about that copy. This makes Bcc a great tool for privacy.
How Bcc Works
Imagine you are sending an email to your friend, Alex. You also want your teacher, Ms. Lee, to get a copy, but you don't want Alex to know Ms. Lee received it.
1. You would put Alex's email address in the "To" field. 2. You would put Ms. Lee's email address in the "Bcc" field. 3. When Alex gets the email, it will look like it was sent only to him. He won't see Ms. Lee's address anywhere. 4. Ms. Lee will receive the email, and she will know it was also sent to Alex.
This hiding feature is the main difference between Bcc and Cc.
Why Use Blind Carbon Copy?
People use Bcc for several good reasons, mostly related to privacy and managing large groups of recipients.
Protecting Privacy
One of the biggest reasons to use Bcc is to protect people's privacy. When you send an email to many people using the "To" or "Cc" fields, everyone can see everyone else's email address. This can be a problem because:
- It exposes personal information (email addresses) to many people.
- It can lead to "reply all" storms, where everyone in the group gets every reply, which can be annoying.
- It can make email addresses available for spammers if one of the recipients' accounts gets hacked.
Using Bcc prevents these issues by keeping email addresses private.
Sending to Large Groups
Bcc is very useful when you need to send an email to a large number of people who don't necessarily know each other. For example:
- A school sending a newsletter to all parents.
- A club sending updates to all its members.
- A coach sending a message to all team players.
In these cases, you wouldn't want everyone to see hundreds of other email addresses. Bcc keeps the list clean and private.
Professional Communication
Sometimes, in professional settings, you might need to keep certain people informed without making their involvement obvious to the main recipient. Bcc allows you to do this discreetly. For instance, a manager might Bcc a supervisor on an email to an employee to keep them in the loop without the employee knowing.
Bcc vs. Cc: What's the Difference?
Both Bcc and Cc are ways to send copies of an email. However, they work differently:
- Cc (Carbon Copy): When you put someone's email address in the Cc field, everyone who receives the email (in "To" or "Cc") can see that person's address. It's like making a visible copy for them.
- Bcc (Blind Carbon Copy): When you put someone's email address in the Bcc field, their address is hidden from all other recipients. Only the sender and the Bcc recipient know about that copy.
Think of it this way: Cc is like handing out copies of a paper in a meeting where everyone can see who got one. Bcc is like secretly slipping a copy under someone's door without anyone else noticing.
See also
- Carbon copy
- In Spanish: Copia de carbón oculta para niños
