You’d probably recognize this: a meeting is organized with people that seem to know each other, and the organizer has to send the invitation, or the reports, to all. It’s late at night before the report is ready, and rather than use the admin support, the organizer decides to quickly send it to all the attendees via e-mail. He or she quickly adds the mail addresses to the ‘To:’-field, and ‘send’.

That way, all the attendants get all the e-mail addresses of all the other attendants. Just imagine what happens if there is one less trustworthy person in that list. Or even in less suspicious times: if one of the attendants forwards the report to some other people, who he or she thinks needs that info. And think about it, when you would be the one in that list. You would probably not like that.

That’s why we always advise to use ‘Bcc:’-field to include all the e-email addresses of the attendants. Put your own e-mail address in the ‘To:’-field. That way, you know the report is sent correctly, because you received it yourself. Or put the e-mail address of the admin support in the ‘To:’-field so you know it gets filed correctly.

So remember

• Do not enter the attendance-mail addresses in the ‘To:’-field
• Use the ‘Bcc:’-field instead for the distribution e-mail addresses
• Enter only your own e-mail address in the ‘To:’-field