What Do CC and BCC Mean?

Whenever you send an email, you will come across two fields around the "To" field: CC and BCC. CC and BCC are two ways you can include more people as the recipients in an email.

CC stands for Carbon Copy and BCC stands for Blind Carbon Copy.

The big difference between the two is that you can see a list of recipients when CC is used, but the recipients of an email sent with BCC won't be able to see the other recipients of the email, hence the 'Blind' in the name. Using BCC adds a layer of secrecy since only the sender can see the list of recipients, while everyone else will think the email was only send to them and no one else.

When should you use CC?
Since the "To" field is primarily reserved for the main recipients of the email, other interested parties should be CC'd to the email so that they are included, have their own copy of the email, and can respond to the email chain.

When should you use BCC?
1. When sending to many people
The email will look like it has been specifically sent to each person, instead of you sending it to a mass amount of people.

2. When you don’t want the primary recipient to know that other people have been copied on the email.