Sending emails to multiple recipients - why you should always use BCC

 

When sending or forwarding an email to multiple recipients you should always use the "BCC" field and NOT the "TO" field

 

BCC stands for Blind Carbon Copy. It's a field, just like the To-field in your e-mail program/website. The difference is that the addresses you send the e-mail to are hidden and can't be seen by anyone but the original sender

 

There are several reasons for this:-

 

•Some people don't want their email address given out to others - they gave it to you to use only, not for you to give it out to everyone else

 

•If just one person you email has a virus then every person on that email is at risk of getting that virus - e-mail viruses check for all addresses a person has in his/her email and tries to infect them

 

•One of the people you email may be a spammer and in turn pass all these addresses on to others, resulting in unwanted junk/spam emails

 

•There is a very high risk that someone accidentally clicks "Reply to all" and sends his/her reply to everyone on the list. This can quickly become lots of e-mails to everyone on that list

 

Remember when sending emails to multiple recipients always use the BCC field, if not you are breaching people's privacy and putting them at risk of receiving spam and viruses

 

For more details on how to use BCC see the guide relevant to the email program/website you use

 

 

Descriptive subject line

 

When sending emails make sure you always enter something in the subject line of the email - leaving it blank means most email and anti-virus systems will think it is spam and move it to a junk/spam folder - meaning the recipient may never realise you have emailed them

 

 

Joke, hoax, scam and spam emails

 

Think twice before sending on these emails to everyone in your address book

 

•Does the recipient want these emails? because sending them to people without permission is classed as spamming and is a criminal offence with fines up to £5000

 

•Does the email contain potentially offensive content? i.e. is it a joke that could easily offend one of the recipients

 

•If you do feel you have to send these messages on then make sure you use BCC as above - as if not you are giving out someone's email to others - and a lot of people go to a lot of trouble to protect who has their email addresses, so they don't receive spam - and may not be very happy about it being handed out without their permission

 

•Finally remember if you send emails such as this from your work email address then you are most likely breaking your companies email/internet policy, and could be liable to disciplinary action and/or the risk of losing your job - most companies are very strict about what you can use their email system for, especially if the sending of such emails could cause embarrassment, legal implications or bad publicity for the company

 

 

Sending multiple or large attachments

 

When sending attachments (photos, documents etc) to others via email - consider how many files you are sending and how big they are - not everyone has fast internet connections, and sending a lot of photos for example can easily clog up another person's email and cause them problems - so firstly make sure the person you are sending too really wants to be sent the attachments and if so make sure you send them in small chunks, or in the case of photos upload them to a photo website and instead send them the link so they can view them without having to receive lots of large files

 

Most new digital cameras create very large files due to the high resolution of the photos, often 7mb+ - files of this size are not suitable for emailing and need to be shrunk down using your photo editing software before sending

 

It is recommended not to send more than about 2mb per email

 

 

Never use all capital letters

 

Using capital letters for a whole email is the equivalent of shouting in electronic communication, and can be offensive - let alone making it a lot harder to read