Recently, I noticed a complaint about e-mail in which the entire address book had been pasted into the "To:" line. In this blog, the complaint was more along the lines of paper wasted printing out all the e-mail addresses. Unfortunately, this is not the biggest problem with this situation. Yes, it does waste paper when printing out the message, however, each addressee has access to all these addresses. If even one person on the list is a mass mailer then all the other people will notice an increase in the amount of spam they receive. Aside from the risk of spam, which is a considerable problem these days, this behavior could be viewed as a violation of privacy.
Fortunately, there is a very simple method of eliminating this problem. It is called "Blind Carbon Copy" and has been around for quite some time. The effort required to use this procedure is little more than what is required to address e-mail in the regular manner. Further more there is only a little difference in using this method and the regular addressing method. With a little preparation you can send out e-mail to your entire address book just as easily as you do now.
Outlook Express
With Outlook Express open click the create mail button. Do not double click names in your contact list to open the form as this automatically inserts the contacts address in the "To:" line.
With the "New Message" form open, hold your mouse pointer over the word "To:". This causes a button to appear that will open your address book contact list when clicked. The "Cc:" below this will act in the same manner. An icon next to words or letters is a pretty good indicator of this behavior. For the curious, "Cc:" stands for "Carbon copy" and acts much the same as pasting multiple addresses in the To: line.
The "Select Recipients" dialog contains your address book contact list in the left column. High light/Select names on your contact list to which you wish to send mail. Next click the "Bcc:" button toward the bottom and to the right of the contact list. When you have finished making your selections click the "OK" button at the bottom. The red stars in this graphic will be replaced by actual names and addresses on your screen.
This procedure is fine for an occasional multiple mailing but is not to handy if you mail out a news letter or what ever on a regular basis. Now is the time to explain the preparation mentioned earlier. When you have Outlook Express open, click the button labeled "Addresses".
When your address book opens click the indicated "New" button. From the resulting drop down list click/select "New Group"
With the Group Properties dialog open type in a name for the group. In case you do more than one mailing, make the name something easily recognized. Next click the "Select Members" button.
The "Select Group Members" dialog opens. Looking remarkably similar to the contact list, one selects the name of a person to enter into the group on the left then clicks the "Select" button. Unfortunately, the shift and control keys do not work for multiple selections in this dialog. When you have finished selecting members for this group be sure to click the "OK" button at the bottom of the dialog.
Once your group or groups have been established, all you need to do when you get ready to make a multiple mailing is select the group name from the contact list on the left then click the "Bcc:" button.
When I first learned to blind carbon copy, e-mail programs would not send e-mail with a blank "To:" line. If this is still the case the simple fix is to enter your own e-mail address in the "To:" line. This way the only addresses the recipient can see are his/her own and the senders.
Windows Mail
Windows Mail, the e-mail program that comes with Windows Vista should have a familiar look and feel to Outlook/Outlook Express users. To create a group for multiple address mailing open Windows Mail, click "Tools", and select "Windows Contacts" from the drop down menu.
When "Windows Contacts", the equivalent of the Address Book, opens click the button at the top labeled "New Contact Group".
The "Group Properties" dialog has changed very little from Outlook. The buttons have been relabeled and the new theme applied to the windows appearance, however, you still name the group here and click the "Add to Contact Group" button to add recipients.
In the "Add members to Contact Group" dialog, all that is required if you use a single click desktop is to click on a name to add and it is automatically added to the group. You are returned to the previous window. If you do not use the "single click" folder and file preference, you click on a name then click the "Add" button at the bottom of the window. To add additional members you click the "Add to Contact Group" button in the "Group Properties" dialog and repeat the process for each name you want in the group. When you have finally selected all the names you want to add to this group be sure to click the "OK" button at the bottom of the "Group Properties" dialog. This button was cropped from the graphic used in this article.
As in Outlook/Outlook Express, ounce groups/distribution lists have been established it is simply a matter of opening an new e-mail form, preparing your message to send, and clicking the "To:" or "Cc:" button. This opens the "select Recipients" dialog from which you select the group/distribution list of your choice and click the "Bcc:" button. As before it is recommended that you place your address in the "To:" field of the e-mail form.
Microsoft Office Outlook
Outlook Express is not the only e-mail client with these capabilities. Microsoft Outlook, of course, does this as well and the steps are similar although with the different layout a person could become confused while trying to perform them. For the occasional multiple mailing click the "New" button in the upper left corner of the Outlook window.
The new message button opens a Microsoft Word form designed for e-mail messages. While this form has many more functions than the form in Outlook Express, the basic functions are the same. The "To:", "Cc:" and subject lines, for instance, have the same functions. The "To:" and "Cc:" buttons open the address book.
As with Outlook Express, one highlights a name in the contact list on the left to select then clicks the "Bcc:" button to add the contact to the message. When finished selecting and adding names you then click the "OK" button at the bottom of the form.
For those who do regular multiple mailing, Outlook is a bit different. First click the small arrow next to the "New" button icon. This produces a drop down menu from which you select the "Distribution List" item. This item replaces the "groups" in Outlook Express.
Up to this point there has been little difference in Outlook that comes with Office 2003 and Office 2007. Differences are due to the Office 2007 ribbon and justify addressing the following steps for each version.
With the Outlook 2003 "Distribution List" dialog window open you give your new list a name then click the "Select Members" button to add contacts to this distribution list.
In Office 2007 Outlook, this step is the same except the "Select Members" button is located in the Office Ribbon. The button is circled in white in the illustration.
For Office 2003 Outlook, the "Select Members" dialog opens, in which names on the contact list are selected on the left and clicking the "Members" button adds the select contact to the distribution list. Be sure to click the "OK" button at the bottom when finished. This closes the "Select Members" dialog and returns you to the "Distribution List" dialog. Make sure you have given your list a name then click the "Save and Close" button. Sending a message to all on this "Distribution List" is just a matter of clicking the "To:" button on your e-mail form then selecting the distribution list from your contacts and clicking the "Bcc:" button. This puts the name of the distribution list in the "Bcc:" box on your e-mall form after which its just a matter of clicking the send button.
Again the process is the same for the two versions of Outlook and differences are for the most part cosmetic. Instead of a separate list of selected members Office 2007 Outlook places the selected members in the line next to the circled Members button at the bottom. The asterisks in the accompanying screen shots for both versions were placed there to protect the privacy of the individuals in the address books.
As with all things computers, there is more than one way to accomplish the task of creating a Distribution List. With Outlook open click "Tools" on the top line menu. Next click the "Address Book item on the drop down menu. This step is the same for both version of Outlook except for cosmetics.
There is a divergence between versions in this next step. On the Office Outlook 2003 Address Book window click the "New Entry" button.
In Office 2007 Outlook the tool bar has been removed and it becomes necessary to use the top line menu. Single left click "File". Then on the drop down menu click "New Entry".
The previous step opens the "New Entry" dialog, which is similar in both versions. On this screen you choose "New Distribution List" and click the "OK" button. This opens the Distribution List dialog and from this point the procedure uses the same steps as previously explained.
Thunderbird
Thunderbird is the is the matching e-mail client for Mozilla's browser Firefox. This e-mail client also provides for blind carbon copy of addresses to which one wishes to send mail and grouping of addresses for multiple mailings. For the occasional message that gets sent to more than one address click the "Write" button in the Thunderbird toolbar. This, of course, opens the form in which you compose your message.
When first composing a message on this form it appears that addresses have to be typed into the address lines. Evidently to avoid infringement litigation, Mozilla.org opted for an entirely different method of inserting addresses using the contact list. This list from the Address Book is easily accessed via the "Contacts" button.
The "Contacts" button opens a pane on the left side of the "Compose" mail window. Right click on a contact name to get the context menu shown here. For those who prefer to fill in the subject and address lines then the message body, the "Contacts" button is a toggle so click it again and the contact list will go away. This gives you more room for the message body since the portion of the window for composing messages shrinks while the contact list is open and expands when it is closed. After you have created a group list this is also how you add multiple names to the "Bcc" field.
To create a list to use for regular multiple address mailings open Thunderbird and click the "Address Book" button in the tool bar.
When the Address Book opens click the "New List" button in the tool bar.
The first thing of which you need to be aware, is Thunderbird supports multiple Address Books. The drop down list shown here allows you to select which address book to which you want the multiple mailing list added. Also, the address book you may see labeled "Outlook Express Address Book" is the data import and not the actual address book and any changes made in Outlook Express will not show up in this version.
In this full view of the window it appears that addresses have to be added manually. I suppose this screen would come in handy when you have a printed list of addresses to include in your new list. If the addresses you wish to include are already in your address book, you can use "drag and drop" to accomplish this task. You do need to name your list as indicated then click the "OK" button at the bottom.
The Address Book treats the lists like folders and are listed on both sides of the default tree view. The left pane reveals the address books that have been created. Functioning similar to Windows Explorer, each address book shown in the left pane that contains list will have a plus (+) next to the address book name. Clicking the plus expands the listing to show the lists. At this point the little plus turns into a minus (-) as shown in the graphic. Click on an address book to highlight/select it and the addresses it contains can be viewed in the top right pane. To add an address to a list place your mouse pointer on an address in the right pane press down your left mouse button and hold it down while moving the pointer over to the list name on the left to which you are adding the address then release the mouse button. To View the addresses you have placed in a list simply highlight the list name in the left pane and the addresses in the list are displayed in the right pane.
Now the next time you get an e-mail with 3 million addresses in the "To:" line in addition to ranting about it in your blog send a link to this page in a reply to the offending party. To make it easier just click the "Reply" button on your email form then copy and paste this link in the message body:
Although a google for "bcc:" will result in 12,500,000 "hits" and searching for "bcc: email" will give 1,580,000 results, this hopefully makes a good starting place. With your reply sent go post your blog. Venting is good for you :)
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