Bcc In Mac OS X
By Damien Gallop

November 3rd, 2001

So I am still getting bulk email with my address in the message for all to see. Frankly I am getting tired of asking people nicely to use Bcc instead of To or Cc when they include me in bulk mailings. What would you tell 'em?

Thus I introduced this article. In a moment of frustration I wrote the article Mac OS X and Outlook Express for Windows a while back, which dealt with this. It's a semi-serious issue for two reasons. First, there truly are consequences. Once you make it onto the Big List that gets resold on the internet for $99 continually, you'll rue the day you decided to treat your email address casually. The second reason is that ultimately the whole thing is out of your direct control. When you share your email address, you trust people to use it with respect. Imagine that you gave out your home address to someone, who promptly forwarded it to Publishers Clearing House. Would you be pleased? Only if Publishers actually sent you that check for $6M. Otherwise you'd feel betrayed, and rightly so. It's not only no different in principle with your email address; it's an even greater betrayal, as at least Publishers is a legitimate enterprise that pays hard cash for promotional and mailing expenses. Email spammers don't pay a dime to hit you and ten million others with a continuous deluge of junk, some of which will harm your digital health if you pay attention to it.

The solution is simple. Getting it implemented may not be. The solution is to use Bcc whenever you send an email message to multiple recipients. Let me explain what Bcc is first, then move to a handful of practical cases. Those of us old enough to remember that marvelous precursor of the computer called a typewriter may also recall how backup copies were done. It was that equally brilliant invention called carbon paper. Type once; get two copies. Or three, if you typed hard. Thus came the mnemonic Cc in the context of email. It's even become a verb. You send someone email, and you "cc" it to others in the loop.

Enter Bcc. Bcc stands for Blind Carbon Copy. It only has meaning in an email context. Where Cc keeps everybody in the loop alright, Bcc sends the message to them all, but none of the recipients knows who else received it too. These days, unless you explicitly intend to inform all parties concerned of each other's presence in the loop, you really want to keep those names confidential, if only out of respect for those people. Basic internet etiquette would suggest you get those people's permissions before broadcasting their names.

Anyone who has sent a single piece of email knows what To stands for. It's the data field where you type in a recipient. By extension, Cc is a similar entity for group use. Bcc functions exactly like Cc except it leaves out the names from the message. Typically these three send options are available as you begin a new email message, whether as buttons, fields, or a drop-down list. The magic of how Bcc works within the mailer itself just isn't my problem. It works, and that's all that matters to me.

Of all the variations available with which to send an email message, if I were allowed only one, it would be Bcc. It's fully as functional as any other, and it preserves the recipient's privacy as well.

Question. When would you use Bcc?

Answer. You'd use Bcc by default anytime you plan to send the same message to two or more people. Yes, there would be exceptions, particularly in a work situation. But these occasions are rare. Whenever you select two or more names from your address book, reach for Bcc. Bcc functions exactly like To or Cc. It's just another place to enter recipients. You put a name there, and the mail will go there. The difference is how the mail appears at the other end. Besides preserving your recipients' privacy and respect, you also end up with a much cleaner message.

I only know of one mailer that does not support Bcc, and it is being phased out of internet use altogether. For sure you do not use it for internet email now. Virtually every internet mailer program today has Bcc available. Let me count the ways! From the top of my head, the following mailers support Bcc:

If you use recent versions of any of these, you already have Bcc. If you can't find it, email me. It's there, and I'll happily help you find it. If you use a different mailer than these and you can't find Bcc, let's talk anyway. Odds are we can find it together.

Convinced yet? Then let's look at some specific mailers and how they do Bcc.

Apple Mail for OS X

Oddly enough, Bcc is less than intuitive in Apple's vanguard mailer for OS X. But it's there nevertheless. Press Compose to begin a new letter. Pull down Message, Add Bcc Header to add the field to your new message. Now add email addresses just as you did before, whether manually or using your address book. So far, I can't get this setting to stick forever. Wait for it.

Pine Mail

Pine is a text-based mailer, and is available for just about every operating system known to man. To get the Bcc option, begin a new message. Now press Ctrl-R to pick up Rich Headers. Voila. However, as a Pine novice myself, I have yet to find out how to get rich headers by default. That's fine. I can wait.

Outlook Express for Windows

I feel it's important to profile Outlook Express for Windows in this a Mac column, as, for some barely explicable reason, far and away the most violations of email address privacy I've personally suffered were committed with it. Outlook Express does not show Bcc by default. Begin a new message. Now pull down View, and check All Headers. Now you'll get the Bcc option in every message by default from now on, unless you explicitly uncheck All Headers, which of course you won't do.

Eudora Mail

Eudora is a thoroughly practical mailer. I can't quite tell you why, except that I am a practical person, and I relate to Eudora very well. Never mind that. Begin a new message. Click in the Bcc field and go! No fuss, no muss.

With a few variations, it's the same in every mailer. Why the two largest software outfits in the business have missed making this basic security item a default in their mailer products is astounding. Get with the plan, guys!

SET SOAPBOX UP

If these companies are overlooking such a simple thing - heck, both of their packages are more complicated because of their implementations of Bcc - one wonders what else they've missed. There's yet another reason to look to third-party solutions for security, such as the BrickHouse and ZoneAlarm firewalls.

SET SOAPBOX DOWN

There we have it, the technical arcania of Bcc. That's the easy part. The tough part is how the whole Bcc thing is ultimately out of your direct control. It's out of your control because you are the one whose email address is at risk. It's others who, carelessly or thoughtlessly, misuse your email address. So ultimately the change has to come from them. And they won't do it unless they're motivated. In lesser moments, I'm tempted to forward some of their names to a few public lists and watch them burn. But of course I'd be worse than any of them if I did that, as much as they might deserve it (particularly certain repeat offenders). What is to be done, then? Explain, convince, cajole, hand-wave, forward this article...

That gives me an idea for a thought experiment. What if, just what if I did forward that internet miscreant's email address in a bogus message to each of the fifty thousand or so internet news lists? What are the odds that his name would be picked up by one of those automatic scavenging software programs, and get appended to the Big List? Somewhere between ninety nine and a hundred percent, I'd say. If his name got picked up by a few of those purveyors of, say, naughty accessories, what then? What would people think? What's a reputation worth anyway? I'd watch it melt away before my eyes. It would be so simple. But it also would be a terrorist act. Now, what if some hapless individual forwarded that cute chainmail message to a favorite newslist, addresses and all? What makes that act different from the terrorist's? In practice, nothing! The same outcome ensues; your email address ends up on the Big List. The only difference is intent, and saying sorry doesn't undo the damage done.

If someone forwarded you this article and you generously took the time to read it this far, perhaps the lights are beginning to come on for you. Your concerned friend is trying to tell you something, and up to now you have missed the message. Well, what if it happened to you? Conversely, what can you do to prevent it from happening to your friend? Use Bcc from now on. That's it. That one simple step will save untold aggravation, and help maintain that mutual trust between you and your friends. Consider it.

Some less than honest companies will use your email address for promotional purposes. Many people have a collection of email addresses, each of which they use for specific purposes. When they begin to receive streams of junk to one of them, they know who did it and can prosecute, if they so choose. This strategy belongs to a different thread than Bcc, but it does underscore the importance of email address care. I may have to use this strategy for those few hard-headed individuals who refuse to get it. That would be a pity, but you have to do what you have to do. This is serious, and they obviously aren't.

I have some fairly aggressive mail filtering here. A quick check of my Trash folder shows to a first-order an exponential growth trend in it. I'm beginning to think that I waited too long to write this article. I hope it isn't too late for you. Ciao.

»