Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with BCC

What are the legal ramifications of accidently sharing email addresses in Canada?

talkingmuffin — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 15:32:26 -0800

A couple of people at my company have accidently sent emails to groups of contacts using the To: field rather than the Bcc: field against company policy. What are the legal ramifications? It's important to know that the company is located in Canada.

We've had two incindents like this in the past couple of weeks with two different employees who manage two separate (but not mutually exclusive) lists. Do we need to worry about the legal ramifications of these completely unintentional events? Of course, apologies have been offered to all parties involved.

On a separate note how can I prevent this from happening again? We use Outlook 2003/Exchange. Is there any way to pop up a warning message when the To: field contains more than, say, 5 people? Alternatively should I switch to some sort of mailing list manager that will, by design, always send via Bcc: or one email at time?

How to auto-bcc in Outlook 2003 for free?

krudiger — Sat, 09 May 2009 20:28:38 -0800

Can I auto-bcc in outlook 2003 without paying? I recently had to switch from Thunderbird to Outlook at work. I've been bcc:ing everything for a couple of years to my gmail, which has been great, but of course it isn't as easy in Outlook. I've seen a few pieces of software to do it for $25 or so, but would love to find a way for cheaper or for free. Any advice? Thanks!

Grinchy Spam Filters

crapples — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 06:38:06 -0800

Christmas Email Conundrum: How exactly do Spam Filters work? We have produced a short Christmas video for our Christmas Card this year. We're putting it on youtube and sending a link to all of our friends and family. Right now I have 97 email addresses that the link needs to go to. What I would like to do is put all 97 addresses in the BCC field and only my wife's address in the To: field.

My question: Is the email likely to be marked as Spam by several/most/any of our 97 friends? Are there standard BCC rules/limits to the main spam filters out there? Is there anything I can do to minimize the likelihood that our "card" will end up in Junk boxes?

Thanks!

How to get mail BCC'd to me to show up on my phone.

4ster — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 08:32:57 -0800

My Blackberry (8703e, OS 4.2, Sprint, BIS) cannot receive email BCC'd to me. This is apparently because, while I have set up my Embarq mail to forward everything sent to me in the To: box and the CC: box, there is no option to set a filter to tell Embarq to send all BCC: mail to my @sprint.blackberry.net address so it will show up on my phone. Is there any kind of workaround for this? Is there any kind of workaround for this? Thanks for your help.

Does a reply-all really reply to all?

Baby_Balrog — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 11:09:13 -0800

How do bcc's work, exactly? I think I caught someone doing something bad. I received a particularly vociferous, nasty email today from a coworker. She accused me of all manner of villainy and inadequacy. She cc'd my boss and a couple of other people. When I "replied all" (with a sincere apology, an expression of confusion and an offer to meet in person to amend any wrongdoings) I received an SMTP error in reply, that my message could not be delivered to a particular address.
BUT - the particular address that the message could not be delivered to is the email address of a former employee, one who was asked to resign over some misconduct, and was not present in the original list of individuals who were cc'd.

My question is this, I guess: When you "reply all" does it include anyone bcc'd on the original email? If so, did the smtp error reveal the person who was bcc'd? Here is the error it returned to me (with relevant email addresses redacted - the email address of the former employee is the earthlink address):

This message was created automatically by mail delivery software (Exim).

A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its
recipients. This is a permanent error. The following address(es) failed:

[redacted]@earthlink.net
SMTP error from remote mailer after RCPT TO::
host mx3.earthlink.net [209.86.93.228]: 550 [redacted]@earthlink.net...User unknown

if my coworker is bcc'ing this former employee regarding business issues, this would be a very, very unethical thing.

Is there a way to bcc an email into a database somewhere?

andrewzipp — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 06:13:07 -0800

Is there a way to bcc an email into a database somewhere? I'm using Gallery2, and really like the emails it sends the customer and me. I don't want to rewrite that form.

I'd just like to be able to copy a database in on it, so it saves them all somewhere. Any ideas?

Howto Auto BCC in Thunderbird?

priorpark17 — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 12:36:02 -0800

I want every email I send from Thunderbird to be BCCed to a gmail address? It is late Sunday, (or I am coming down with something) but I can't figure out how to automatically have a copy of every email I send via Thunderbird BCCed to a gmail address that I am using as a backup store. Ideally, I would like it to go to the gmail sent box.

Viewing the BCC field on emails one sends with OS X?

Manhasset — Tue, 05 Sep 2006 19:30:40 -0800

Can I see the names in the BCC field of an email that I sent on OS X Mail? I can't seem to figure it out if it's possible. If it's not possible, are there any OS X mail apps that do allow this? When I was on Windows, I used an email program that allowed me to view the BCC field. It was very useful to look and see who the recipients were (ie, to make sure I invited everyone to a party or gathering). It annoys the hell out of me that I can't seem to do this in OS X. Why block this info from the sender?

Who the heck did I send that to??

anastasiav — Thu, 09 Feb 2006 10:43:57 -0800

Outlook Express: Is there an easy way to open a message in my Sent Messages folder and see who I sent the message to as a BCC? In Outlook (not Express), I can easily view the list of everyone I sent a particular email to just by opening the message as saved in the Sent Messages folder -- the list of addresses is all right there. In Outlook Express, I can't seem to replicate this function. Is there some setting I can change that will allow me (the sender) to view whom I sent this email to?

This answer on a Outlook Express help site seems to say that there is no such setting, but I was hoping the collective wisdom of MeFi might have a better answer than File -> Properties -> Details.

Automagically BCC addresses in GMail

chunking express — Mon, 16 May 2005 06:22:50 -0800

Does anyone know how I can automatically BCC an email address when I send email with GMail? Is there any way to BCC one address all the time that I'm not aware of, an undocumented/hidden feature? I think a GreaseMonkey script might be one solution, though I'm not completely sure how it works. Any ideas would be appreciated.

Outlook Express BCC

limitedpie — Fri, 19 Dec 2003 06:59:12 -0800

I use Outlook Express and sent an email to a large list of people. I used the "To:" field to send it to myself and the "Bcc:" field to send it to the list (so no person receiving it could see who else was receiving it.) Now I need to look back and see who was included on the "Bcc:" list but when I look at this email in the "Sent" Folder it only shows the "To:" field, even when I click "All Headers" in the View menu. Help!