A newsletter or mailing list is an email list that you send out to subscribers, either on a periodic basis or in response to an event.
Many organizations, businesses, and educational institutions use mailing lists to distribute news or information to their constituents.
All the recipients are unknown to each other, and the best method to send emails to all the members is Blind Courtesy Copy (BCC), putting all of them in the ‘To’ field, obviously to expose others’ email addresses.
What are Undisclosed Recipients in Outlook?
Sending emails to multiple people and users who want to keep the privacy of all the recipients, the best method uses BCC (Blind carbon copy).
You won’t need to expose others’ email addresses to unknown people.
Undisclosed Recipient is the name mentioned for an email address, which is later on used to send emails to multiple people. That itself kept a recipient’s email address hidden either.
Undisclosed recipients in Outlook refer to the practice of sending an email to a group of people without revealing their identities to each other.
This is usually done to protect the privacy of the recipients and to prevent spamming or phishing attacks.
When an email is sent to undisclosed recipients, the To field is left blank, and the Bcc (blind carbon copy) field is used to add the email addresses of the recipients.
The sender’s email address is usually added to the CC (carbon copy) field to indicate that they are the sender of the email.
Undisclosed recipients are commonly used in business and professional settings, where it is important to protect the privacy of the recipients.
For example, a company may send an email to all its employees without revealing their email addresses to each other.
This can help prevent spamming or phishing attacks that target specific individuals.
Undisclosed recipients can also be used for personal emails, such as sending a holiday greeting to a group of friends or family members.
This can help prevent the recipients from accidentally replying to all, which can lead to a cluttered inbox and unnecessary emails.
Overall, undisclosed recipients in Outlook are a useful feature that can help protect the privacy of the recipients and prevent spamming or phishing attacks.
When used appropriately, they can help streamline communication and make email correspondence more efficient.
Why Use an Undisclosed Recipients Contact?
‘Undisclosed Recipients‘ contact is something you can put in the ‘To’ field that makes it clear to recipients that other people also are getting the same message and their names are hidden.
Anyone who receives the message will simply see ‘Undisclosed Recipients‘ as the main recipient of the message.
You can name the contact anything you want, but “Undisclosed Recipients” has become kind of an accepted tradition.
You can put your own email address under ‘Undisclosed Recipients‘, that way you can add your own email address in the ‘To’ section.
Steps To Create Undisclosed Recipients Contact
Creating an Undisclosed Recipient is similar to creating a new contact.
Step 1: Open Outlook Application
Step 2: Click on the Contact icon from the left top navigation section >> From the Home Tab >> Click the New Contact button.
Step 3: New Contact creation form appears, Enter the details, such as Full Name – Enter the name Undisclosed Recipient as discussed above, and also under Display Name. ‘Undisclosed Recipients‘ is something people are likely to be used to seeing.
Step 4: Secondly Enter the email address you owned, when you create and send an email to multiple recipients Undisclosed Recipients are visible to all the recipients.
Step 5: Now, when you need to send an email to multiple people, create a new message, use the ‘Undisclosed Recipients‘ contact in the ‘To‘ field, and then enter the addresses of all the recipients (distribution list) in the ‘Bcc‘ field.
Note: Instead of entering the email address of multiple recipients one by one, you can prefer to make a group or distribution list and enter the distribution list name, all the emails are automatically added in the BCC field.
Steps to Send an Email Using the Undisclosed Recipient’s Contact
Sending emails to undisclosed recipients in Outlook is a great way to protect the privacy of your recipients.
This feature allows you to send mass emails to multiple recipients without revealing their email addresses to each other.
Here are the steps to send emails to undisclosed recipients in Outlook:
Step 1: Create a New Message
To begin, open Outlook and click on the “New Email” button to create a new message. This will open a new message window where you can compose your email.
Note: You can also use Keyboard Shortcut Ctrl + N to open New Email window.
Step 2: Add Undisclosed Recipients
To add undisclosed recipients, click on the “To” button in the message window. This will open the “Select Names” dialog box.
In the “Select Names” dialog box, type “Undisclosed Recipients” in the “To” field and your email address in the “E-mail” field. Click “OK” to close the dialog box.
Step 3: Add a Subject and Message
After adding undisclosed recipients, you can add a subject and message to your email. Type your subject in the “Subject” field and your message in the message body.
You can also format your message using the formatting options available in the message window.
Step 4: Send the Email
Once you have composed your email, click on the “Send” button to send the email to undisclosed recipients.
Your email will be sent to all the recipients in the Bcc field, and they will not be able to see each other’s email addresses.
In conclusion, sending emails to undisclosed recipients in Outlook is a simple and effective way to protect the privacy of your recipients.
By following the steps outlined above, you can easily send mass emails to multiple recipients without revealing their email addresses to each other.
Crash Course – How To add the Bcc field to a message
By default, the Outlook application disables the Blind Courtesy Copy (BCC) field, to enable this field Click on New mail >> Options >> Click on BCC to enable.
Important Note: Enter your Email address in the ‘To‘ field, majority of people do this so that when people receive the message, it will only show your email address and of course, it’s come from you anyway.
Keeping To filed blank and sending an email with only Bcc addresses, your email may be marked as Spam and not make it to the recipient.
How to View Undisclosed Recipients in Outlook
When an email is sent to undisclosed recipients in Outlook, the recipients’ email addresses are hidden from the other recipients.
This is done by using the “Bcc” field, which stands for “blind carbon copy.”
While it is not possible to view the email addresses of undisclosed recipients in Outlook, there are a few ways to determine if an email was sent to undisclosed recipients.
One way to determine if an email was sent to undisclosed recipients is to look at the message window. If the message window shows “To: Undisclosed Recipients,” then the email was sent to undisclosed recipients.
However, if the message window shows a specific recipient’s name or email address, then the email was not sent to undisclosed recipients.
Another way to determine if an email was sent to undisclosed recipients is to look at the email headers.
The email headers contain information about the email, including the recipients’ email addresses.
To view the email headers in Outlook, open the email and click on the “File” tab.
Then, click on “Properties” and scroll down to the “Internet headers” section.
The email headers will be displayed in this section, and you can look for the “Bcc” field to see if the email was sent to undisclosed recipients.
It is important to note that if an email was sent to undisclosed recipients, it is likely that the sender did not want the recipients’ email addresses to be visible.
Therefore, attempting to view the email addresses of undisclosed recipients may be considered a breach of privacy.
In summary, while it is not possible to view the email addresses of undisclosed recipients in Outlook, there are ways to determine if an email was sent to undisclosed recipients.
By looking at the message window or email headers, you can determine if an email was sent to undisclosed recipients.
However, it is important to respect the sender’s privacy and not attempt to view the email addresses of undisclosed recipients unless it is absolutely necessary.
How to Add Attachments to Emails with Undisclosed Recipients in Outlook
When sending an email to undisclosed recipients in Outlook, it is still possible to add attachments to the message. Here are the steps to follow:
- Start by creating a new email message in Outlook.
- In the “To” field, type “Undisclosed Recipients” followed by your own email address in brackets, like this: “Undisclosed Recipients <youremail@domain.com>”.
- Click on the “Attach File” button in the “Include” section of the message window.
- Browse to the file you want to attach and select it.
- Click on the “Insert” button to attach the file to the email.
It is important to note that when sending attachments to undisclosed recipients, it is recommended to use a file sharing service instead of attaching large files to the email.
This is because some email providers may have size limits on attachments, which could cause the email to bounce back or not be delivered at all.
Another option is to compress the files into a zip folder before attaching them to the email. This can help reduce the overall size of the attachment and make it easier to send.
In summary, adding attachments to emails with undisclosed recipients in Outlook is a straightforward process.
By following the steps outlined above, users can easily attach files to their emails and ensure that they are delivered to the intended recipients.
Privacy Concerns with Using Undisclosed Recipients in Outlook
Undisclosed recipients in Outlook are a useful feature for sending emails to a group of people without revealing their identities to each other.
However, this feature can also raise privacy concerns, especially when it comes to sharing private information.
When sending an email to undisclosed recipients, the sender must be careful not to include any sensitive or confidential information in the email body or subject line.
This is because anyone who receives the email will be able to see the email addresses of all the other recipients in the Bcc field.
Moreover, if any of the recipients reply to the email, their reply will be sent to all recipients in the Bcc field, which can compromise the privacy of the recipients.
Therefore, it is recommended that the sender instructs the recipients not to reply to all when responding to the email.
Another concern with using undisclosed recipients is that it can be used for spamming or phishing purposes.
Spammers and phishers can use undisclosed recipients to send emails to a large number of people without revealing their identities.
This can make it difficult for the recipients to identify the sender or report the email as spam.
To prevent such scenarios, it is recommended that the sender verifies the identity of all recipients before sending an email to undisclosed recipients.
The sender should also avoid sending emails to large groups of people unless it is necessary, and should always use a professional and respectful tone in the email.
In conclusion, while undisclosed recipients in Outlook can be a useful feature, it is important to be aware of the potential privacy concerns that come with using it.
By following best practices and being mindful of the information that is shared, users can use undisclosed recipients safely and effectively.
What’s the Benefit of Sending Emails to Multiple Users Using Undisclosed Recipients?
For privacy protection
In email marketing, it is easy to lose touch with your customers. They may not open your emails regularly, or they may actually forget about you.
You may not have to use as many resources as you would need to with traditional marketing.
The privacy of recipients is very important when sending out a mass email.
While some of the bigger email providers allow you to store recipients’ email addresses, most do not provide that as an obligation of their service.
Protect your emails to send Spam
Although this does happen in Outlook, Outlook does not set an automatic rule marking your emails as spam.
However, if you actually receive too many emails, Outlook may set the rule, although it’s rare for that to happen. It can happen, though, if you send it to many recipients.
To bypass this filter, you may use the undisclosed recipient’s feature when sending your next email.
Conclusion
In summary, sending emails to undisclosed recipients in Outlook is a useful feature that allows users to send emails to multiple recipients without revealing their email addresses to each other.
This feature is particularly useful for sending mass emails, such as newsletters or announcements, without compromising the privacy of the recipients.
To send an email to undisclosed recipients in Outlook, users can simply create a new message, type “Undisclosed Recipients” in the To field, and enter their own email address in the Bcc field.
Alternatively, they can create an undisclosed recipients contact in their address book and use it to send emails to multiple recipients.
It is important to note that Gmail also offers a similar feature for sending emails to undisclosed recipients.
Users can simply add the Bcc field to their message and enter the email addresses of the recipients they wish to send the email to.
Overall, sending emails to undisclosed recipients is a simple and effective way to protect the privacy of email recipients while still being able to send mass emails.
By following the steps outlined in this article, users can easily send emails to undisclosed recipients in Outlook and Gmail.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Undisclosed recipients in Outlook can be confusing, and many people have questions about how they work. Here are some frequently asked questions and their answers:
What does “Undisclosed Recipients” mean in Outlook?
“Undisclosed Recipients” is a term used in Outlook when an email is sent to multiple recipients, but the sender does not want the recipients to see each other’s email addresses.
Instead, the sender puts “Undisclosed Recipients” in the To field, and then puts all the recipients’ email addresses in the Bcc field.
Can I see who else received the email if I’m an undisclosed recipient?
No, if you are an undisclosed recipient, you cannot see who else received the email. This is because the sender has intentionally hidden the other recipients’ email addresses from each other.
How do I send an email to undisclosed recipients in Outlook?
To send an email to undisclosed recipients in Outlook, you need to create a contact called “Undisclosed Recipients” and add your own email address to it.
Then, when you compose a new email, you can put “Undisclosed Recipients” in the To field and put all the recipients’ email addresses in the Bcc field.
Why do people use undisclosed recipients in Outlook?
People use undisclosed recipients in Outlook when they want to send an email to multiple recipients, but they don’t want the recipients to see each other’s email addresses.
This is often done for privacy reasons or to prevent spam.
Can I reply to an email sent to undisclosed recipients in Outlook?
Yes, you can reply to an email sent to undisclosed recipients in Outlook. When you reply, the email will go only to the sender, not to the other recipients.
If you want to reply to all the recipients, you will need to create a new email and add all the recipients’ email addresses manually.
How do I know if I’ve received an email sent to undisclosed recipients in Outlook?
If you’ve received an email sent to undisclosed recipients in Outlook, you will see “Undisclosed Recipients” in the To field.
You will not be able to see who else received the email, as their email addresses are hidden.