How to Hide Email Recipients (for Small and Large Email Sends)

How to Hide Email Recipients (for Small and Large Email Sends)

You need to send an email to more than one person, and you want to know how to hide recipients. We’ll walk you through what you need to do to send an email with undisclosed recipients for both small email sends, like a class-wide email, or large sends, like email marketing. From mail merge to BCC, here’s everything you need to know about maintaining privacy while mass emailing. 

Reasons to hide email addresses when sending an email

There are several reasons you’d want to hide recipients when sending an email to multiple recipients. Here are some of the most common benefits.

• Internal company-wide announcements: Leadership, HR, and employee resource groups (ERGs) often need to send bulk messaging to the entire organization. If you’re sending out a notice about a new policy or an upcoming happy hour, you want to drop the recipients in the BCC field because it will help you avoid accidental “reply all” chaos. 

• Email marketing: You want your email marketing to feel personalized and directed to individual people. For that reason, you’ll want to hide the recipients when sending out emails like newsletters and promotional emails. Email marketing software offers the most dynamic solutions because, in addition to hiding recipients, you can also use mail merge features to include the recipient's name. If you haven’t started using an email marketing service yet, you can also use the blind copy feature in your email provider to hide recipients from each other. 

• Emails sent to large groups: If you’re sending an email to a group, like the parents of a school class or every member of a big family, you might want to hide recipients to help you streamline messaging and avoid side chats or distractions. 

• Privacy: Hiding recipients can protect recipient privacy, which is especially important for bulk emails, email marketing, and other email sends where the recipients might not all know each other. 

• Avoiding the spam filter: If you have a lot of emails in the main recipient field (where it says “to”), an email service provider is more likely to send your email to spam. Hiding recipients can help ensure your email goes to the recipient's primary inbox.

Hiding recipients for large email sends

When you’re sending an email to a larger group—like your full marketing email list, or even a smaller segment, like former customers or newsletter subscribers—you’ll be best served by using email software. That’s because every email service worth its salt is going to offer a mail merge feature, which allows you to import your email list, which in addition to email addresses, can also include first and last names, allowing you to send personalized emails that are also private. 

Hiding email recipients for small email sends

Hiding recipients is good email etiquette when you’re emailing a group. For smaller email sends, you can use the undisclosed recipients feature in your email. All you need to do is find the BCC (which stands for “blind carbon copy”) field in your Gmail account, Outlook account, Yahoo account, etc. Here are the step-by-step instructions for adding undisclosed recipients to a group email, depending on your email client. 

On Gmail Web:

1. Compose a new email: Click on the “Compose” button in the upper-left corner.

2. Enter recipients in BCC: On the "New Message" window, click on Bcc (next to the "To" field). Enter the email addresses of the people you want to hide in the Bcc field.

3. Enter your email address in the “To” field or leave it blank.

4. Finish the email: Type your subject and message as usual.

5. Send: Click “Send” to send the email. Recipients in the BCC field won't see each other's email addresses.

On Gmail Mobile (Android & iOS):

1. Open the Gmail app and tap the “Compose” button (usually at the bottom right).

2. Enter recipients in BCC: Tap the arrow (or three dots) next to the To field to expand the options. Tap “Add BCC.”

3. Enter the email addresses of the recipients you want to hide in the BCC field.

4. Enter your own email address in the “To” field or leave it blank.

5. Finish the email: Add your subject and message.

6. Send: Tap the “Send” icon when you're done.

Outlook on Desktop (Windows or Mac):

1. Open Outlook and click “New Email” to compose a new message.

2. Add the BCC field: In the new email window, click the “Options” tab. Click on BCC in the "Show Fields" group to enable the BCC field.

3. Add recipients: Enter the email addresses of the recipients you want to hide in the Bcc field.

4. Leave the “To” field empty or enter your own email address.

5. Write and send your email: Compose the subject and message.

6. Click “Send.”

Outlook on Web (Outlook.com or Office 365):

1. Log in to your Outlook account and click on “New Message” to compose an email.

2. Show the BCC field: In the new message window, click on Bcc at the right of the "To" field. Enter email addresses in the BCC field.

3. You can leave the To field empty or put your own email address there.

4. Compose and send the email: Type your subject and message.

5. Click “Send.”

Outlook on Mobile (iOS & Android):

1. Open the Outlook app and tap the New Message icon (pencil and paper).

2. Access the BCC field: Tap on the Cc/Bcc option under the To field to open it. Tap “BCC” to add email addresses.

3. Add recipients: Enter the email addresses in the BCC field to hide them.

4. Optionally, add your own address in the To field or leave it empty.

5. Write and send the email: Compose your subject and message.

6. Click “Send.”

Yahoo Mail on Web:

1. Log in to your Yahoo Mail account and click “Compose” to create a new email.

2. Access the BCC field: In the "To" field, click BCC at the far right of the field (next to "CC").

3. Add recipients: Enter the email addresses of the recipients you want to hide in the BCC field.

4. Enter your own email address in the To field or leave it empty.

5. Write and send your email: Add your subject and message.

6. Click “Send.”

Yahoo Mail on Mobile (iOS & Android):

1. Open the Yahoo Mail app and tap the “Compose” button (usually a pencil icon).

2. Access the BCC field: Tap the CC/BCC option below the “To” field to expand it. Tap “BCC” to add hidden recipients.

3. Add recipients: Enter the email addresses in the BCC field to hide them.

4. Optionally, add your own address in the “To” field.

5. Write and send the email: Type your subject and message.

6. Click “Send.”

Apple Mail on Desktop (Mac):

1. Open Apple Mail and click on “New Message” (or use Command + N) to start composing an email.

2. Show the BCC field: In the "New Message" window, click View from the menu bar. Select BCC Address Field to display the BCC field.

3. Add recipients: Enter the email addresses of the recipients you want to hide in the BCC field.

4. You can leave the “To” field empty or add your own email address.

5. Compose and send the email: Type your subject and message.

6. Click “Send.”

Apple Mail on iPhone and iPad:

1. Open the Mail app and tap the “Compose” button (pencil icon).

2. Show the BCC field: Tap the CC/BCC, From field located under the “To” field. This will expand the options, allowing you to see the “BCC” field.

3. Add recipients: Enter the email addresses of the recipients you want to hide in the Bcc field.

4. Add your own address in the “To” field or leave it blank.

5. Compose and send the email: Add your subject, write the message.

6. Click “Send.”

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