What is cc and bcc in gmail

Like all other email providers, Gmail supports CC and BCC fields so you can send additional copies of your emails. We’ll explain what these terms mean, how they’re used, and how to use them in Gmail on desktop and mobile.

Table of Contents

What Is CC and BCC in Gmail?
How to CC or Blind CC in Gmail on Desktop
How to CC or BCC in Gmail on Mobile

What Is CC and BCC in Gmail?

Both CC and BCC help you send an additional copy of your email to your chosen recipients.

CC stands for “carbon copy” and it’s usually used to let a third person know about an email you’re sending to the primary recipient. For example, you can CC your colleague in an email that you’re sending to your boss. The email is mainly intended for your boss but you’d like to keep your colleague in the loop.

Your boss can see the recipients in the CC field. When they choose to reply to all the recipients in your email, your CC’ed person will also receive that reply.

RELATEDWhat's the Difference Between CC and BCC When Sending an Email?

BCC, on the other hand, stands for “blind carbon copy.” This is used when you want to send a copy of an email to someone, but you don’t want the primary recipient to know that you’re doing that. For example, you can BCC your boss in an email that’s primarily intended for a trainee that you’re training. This way, your boss knows your conversation with the trainee but your trainee has no idea that your boss is also seeing the communication.

When your trainee replies to your email, your boss won’t receive the reply, as the trainee’s email program can’t see the people in the BCC field.

How to CC or Blind CC in Gmail on Desktop

To use CC and BCC in Gmail’s desktop version, first, open your favorite web browser and launch the Gmail site. Sign in to your account if required.

On Gmail, open your existing email draft if you have one, or compose a new email by choosing “Compose” in the top-left corner. We’ll select the latter.

On the “New Message” window, next to the “To” field, click “CC” or “BCC” to add the fields to your email. Feel free to click both if you want to use both fields.

In the “To” field, enter the primary recipient’s email address. In the “CC” field, enter the secondary recipient. Remember that your primary recipient will be able to see the people in the “CC” field.

Fill in the “BCC” field with the email address of the people that you want to hide from the primary recipient. Then write up the subject and body of your email, and click “Send” to send your email.

Gmail will deliver your message according to the recipients specified in the “To,” “CC,” and “BCC” fields. You’re all set.

How to CC or BCC in Gmail on Mobile

To CC or BCC someone from your phone, first, launch the Gmail app on your phone.

In Gmail’s bottom-right corner, tap “Compose” to create a new email.

On the “Compose” screen, next to the “To” field, tap the down-arrow icon.

Gmail will display both “CC” and “BCC” fields. As explained above, use the appropriate recipients in the “To,” “CC,” and “BCC” fields. Then fill in the subject and body of your email.

Finally, when you’re ready to send your email, tap the paper airplane icon in the top-right corner.

Your email will be sent to the specified people. You’re done.

If you’re starting out with Gmail and would like to learn more tips, we have a Gmail tips guide to help you do that.

However, the CC and BCC features also have several limitations. That’s why I’ll also demonstrate how to use mail merge tools to make the process far easier!

Also check out how to use BCC email including a better way to send emails to multiple recipients in my guide to using BCC.

This Article Contains:

(use the links below to jump to a particular section)

• CC in Gmail
  • How Is “CC” Different From “To” in Gmail?
  • How to CC In Gmail
    • Web App
    • Android and iOS
  • 3 Major Problems With Gmail’s CC Method

• BCC in Gmail
  • How to use BCC in Gmail
  • 3 Serious Problems with the Blind Carbon Copying in Gmail

• How to send emails to multiple recipients with GMass (for free)

Let’s go.

How to Use CC in Gmail?

The CC (carbon copy) field allows you to send a copy of your email to multiple recipients.

The term “carbon copying” comes from the carbon paper you use to make copies of documents — the email service makes copies of your email and sends it to CC’d recipients.

A. How Is “CC” Different from “To” in Gmail?

The difference between the CC and To field lies in email etiquette.

The To field is used for primary recipients — people required to act in response to your mail.
On the other hand, the CC feature applies to secondary recipients — people who need to be in the loop about the conversation and, ideally, aren’t supposed to take any action.

The correct usage of To and CC fields usually defines who needs to take action and who simply needs the information.

B. How to CC in Gmail

Here’s a step-by-step guide on using the CC field to send mail to multiple recipient lists in Gmail.
I’ll explain the steps when using:

• The web browser
• The Gmail app for Android and iOS (iPhone) devices  

1. How To CC Using Web Browser

Step 1
Log in to your Gmail account and click the Compose button to open up the Gmail compose window.

Step 2
In the To address box, type your primary recipient’s email address. You can separate multiple addresses using a comma, space or by pressing the enter key.

To send a copy of your mail to secondary recipients, you must add each one as a CC recipient.

Click the CC button, as shown below.

Step 3
Enter the email address of recipients who’ll receive a copy of the email in the CC field.

Step 4
Compose your new message and hit Send when your message is complete.
All your recipients (primary + CC’d) will receive the email.

Let’s see how it looks at a recipient’s end.

All recipient addresses in the To and CC fields are visible to everyone in the email.

2. How To CC In Android and iOS (iPhone)

Note: While I’ve used Android screenshots, the process highlighted here is the same for both Android and iOS devices.

Step 1
Open the Gmail app on your Android or iOS device and click on Compose to write your new message.

Step 2
In the To field of the new email, type your primary recipient’s email address. You can separate multiple addresses using a comma or space.

To add a CC recipient, click on the downward arrow on the top right corner in the To address box, as shown below. This will display the CC and BCC fields.

Step 3
In the CC field, enter the mail addresses of the recipients who’ll receive a copy of the email.

Step 4
Compose your message and hit Send. Both your primary recipient and the CC’d person will receive the email.

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Let’s now look at some issues of using Gmail’s CC method.

C. 3 Major Problems with Gmail’s Carbon Copy Method

Some of the problems linked with CC’ing recipients in Gmail are:

1. Displays Mailing List to All Recipients

The recipients in Gmail’s CC list are not hidden from each other. This is fine when you’re sending an email to a group of people who know each other.

However, when you email a group where people don’t know the other parties, using the CC feature is a breach of privacy.

Think about it:
If you’re sending marketing or sales emails, would you think of giving away your mailing list?

Because that’s what you’re doing by using the To/CC field in Gmail!

To protect the identity of your recipients, never use the CC field to communicate confidential information.

2. Impractical for Mass Mailing

Do you need to email dozens or even hundreds of recipients at a time?

Manually adding each recipient to the CC line would be a painstaking and error-prone process. You could misspell an email address, leave someone out, or mistakenly add someone as To. The list goes on.

3. Unintentional Reply All

A significant problem with using the CC line in Gmail is that any CC’d person could mistakenly click “Reply All” instead of the “Reply” button while responding to your mail.

An unintentional “Reply All” broadcasts their response to every address involved in the communication (including the CC list), resulting in a potentially embarrassing situation.

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Now that we’ve covered how to CC in Gmail, let’s explore how to BCC in Gmail since it can solve the first limitation to an extent.

How Do You BCC in Gmail?

The BCC (blind carbon copy) field allows you to send an email to a multiple recipient list.

Each address in the BCC field is known as a tertiary recipient.

When using the BCC option, the main recipient of the mail will be unaware of other recipients you’ve included. As a result, a BCC email is a little more confidential than CC.

While your BCC recipient can’t see who else has been added, they’ll know that they were added to the BCC line and weren’t the only ones being addressed.

A. How to Use Blind Carbon Copy in Gmail

Here’s a step-by-step guide on using the BCC line for sending an email to undisclosed recipients in the Gmail email client. (The process is the same for your mobile Gmail app.)

Use the same first steps as in How to CC in Gmail.

Except, this time, click on add BCC instead of CC.

Enter the tertiary recipient you’d like hidden in the BCC address field.

Then, compose the message and send it.

On the recipient side, it will look something like this:

The main recipient of your email can’t see who else has been added. However, each BCC recipient will know that they’ve been BCC’d to this mail.

For more information on using BCC in Gmail, read my ultimate guide. 

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Let’s now look at some potential issues of using BCC in Gmail.

B. 3 Major Problems with Gmail’s BCC Method

The three major problems with using the BCC field in Gmail include:

1. Unprofessional

Because your recipients in the BCC address field know instinctively they aren’t the only ones added to this mail, it could raise questions or suspicion. That’s why you should never use the BCC feature for formal conversations, as it could lead to distrust among your team members.

2. No Personalization

Gmail’s BCC or CC feature doesn’t allow you to personalize emails.

This means that your recipients receive an email without their name being mentioned. This is enough for many people to mark your email as spam or just delete it.

Moreover, this makes it an impractical method to send pitches and marketing emails.

Why?
As you can’t mention a person’s name and customize their sales message, your BCC list recipient will receive a bland, generic marketing email that disappoints them. You won’t be able to address their concerns and make a personal connection to boost your conversions.

3. No Stats or Analytics from Your Emails

Gmail doesn’t give you any stats or analytics from your BCC or CC emails.

While this might not be an issue for personal communication, it’s a significant problem if you want to track how many people opened or clicked on your sales message.

However, Gmail doesn’t give the sender any features to analyze data — such as when the email was opened or what links were clicked, etc.

These statistics indicate how well your emails are being received, so can you really operate efficiently without them?

Moreover, these stats are helpful not only for email marketers and salespeople but also for anyone who regularly sends mass emails to a group.

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Fortunately, you can easily overcome the problems associated with Gmail’s CC and BCC features by using an email marketing tool like GMass.

How to Send Mass Emails with GMass (and Avoid CC and BCC problems)

GMass is a powerful email marketing software that allows users to run email campaigns from their Gmail inbox. Its powerful mail merge features have made it a popular Chrome extension for employees from top companies like Facebook, Twitter, Google, and LinkedIn.

Individuals, schools, social clubs, and churches can also use GMass to send emails from their Google account to a target audience.

It’s super easy to send emails to multiple recipients in Gmail using the GMass extension.

Here’s how to do it:

1. Enter email addresses in the “To” field.
2. Compose your email subject and message.
3. Click the “GMass” button (instead of Gmail’s Send button).

You’re done! Now you can send emails to multiple recipients within seconds!

Did you notice the {FirstName} field in the screenshot?
This personalization feature allows you to address each recipient in your distribution list by their own name. You will never need to say a generic “Hi” again in your bulk emails.

And instead of manually adding each recipient from your distribution list, you can use one of these three easy ways:

1. Use Google Contacts
2. Export your Contacts to a Google Sheet
3. Export Contacts from a Gmail Label

And with GMass, if you want to use CC and BCC, you can — and you can personalize them for every recipient. Check out our guide to mail merge CC and BCC to see how you can include different CC and/or BCC addresses for everyone on your email list.

Benefits of Using GMass

Here are the top seven reasons to use GMass to send your emails:

• Automatically personalize your bulk emails to multiple people, including the subject line, message body, images, and much more. This way, you can quickly craft emails personalized to each recipient at scale.
• Create sequences to send an automated direct response as follow-up emails. You can customize all aspects of your follow-up emails, such as the time between them or the number of follow-ups.
• Analyze your email performance with detailed email analytics reports right inside your Gmail inbox. You can analyze open rate, response rate, bounce rate, etc.
• Email scheduling helps you schedule the right time to send automatic emails so that each recipient gets them when they’re most likely to check their inboxes.
• Set up behavior-based email campaigns.
• Save any email you send to group members as a template to reuse for your future emails.
• Make use of GMass’ powerful capabilities on your smartphone with the GMass add-on for the Gmail app on Android devices.

To enjoy such unique advantages of GMass, just download the Chrome extension and sign up using your Gmail account.

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Final Thoughts

Mailing to multiple recipients doesn’t have to be a tiring and complicated process.

While Gmail’s CC or BCC field can help, using a mail merge app like GMass is a far better solution. It has tons of features to get the best out of your email campaigns and maximize your conversions for all future emails.

Should I use CC or BCC in email?

What is CC in Gmail?

What is the difference between to CC and BCC in Gmail?