CC vs BCC – What’s the Difference?

While typing an email, you must have noticed that apart from the “To” field, there are more fields. One is CC, and the other one is BCC. CC stands for carbon copy, whereas the term BCC stands for blind carbon copy. But are you aware of the difference between CC and BCC fields? If not, then you are at the right place. In this article, we will discuss CC vs BCC in depth.

The main difference between CC vs BCC is that when you add the recipient’s email address in the CC field, all the recipients can see the list or email addresses of other recipients to whom that mail is sent. On the other hand, when you add the recipient’s email address in the BCC field, recipients cannot see the list or email addresses of other recipients to whom that mail is sent.

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Before diving deeper into CC vs BCC, let’s go through the list of topics covered in this blog:

Table of contents (TOC)

• CC vs BCC
• What is CC?
• What is BCC?
• Key differences between CC vs BCC
• Conclusion

CC vs BCC 

For a better understanding of both the fields: CC vs BCC, let’s explore it in a tabular format:

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What is CC? 

CC definition: CC stands for “Carbon Copy,” and when you add the recipient’s email address in the CC field, all the recipients can see the list or email addresses of other recipients to whom that mail is sent. 

The recipients in the CC in the email field are generally the employees and the management belonging to the same organization. Often, the CC field only addresses a small number of recipients compared to the BCC field, which is often used to address many recipients.

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In order to understand the term CC in email in a better way, let’s go through an example:

CC example: Suppose you work as a content writer in an organization like Info Edge. Your manager asked you to share your article’s update with him and the upper management, which comprises three people. So, to accomplish the task that your manager asked you to do, you will add the manager’s email address in the “To” field.

The email address of those three people will be added in the “CC” field so that they can also see and access the content of the email. All the people to whom the email is sent will be able to see the email address of other recipients to whom the email has been sent.

The CC field helps you keep the relevant persons in the loop so that you don’t have to send the email separately to each one with the same content. But, as each recipient can see other recipients’ email addresses, the privacy factor reduces.

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What is BCC?

BCC definition: BCC stands for “Blind Carbon Copy,” when you add the recipient’s email address in the BCC field, recipients cannot see the list or email addresses of other recipients to whom that mail is sent. 

The recipients added in the BCC fields are the employees and the management belonging to the same organization. But the BCC field addresses many recipients compared to the CC field, which is often used to address a small number of recipients.

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To understand the term BCC in a better way, let’s go through an example:

BCC example: Suppose you are a content writer in an organization, in this case, Info Edge. Your manager asked you to share the articles you and the team (consisting of 20 employees) published last month. The report has to be shared with him (manager), management, and the director and HOD of some other vertical.

So, to accomplish your manager’s task, you will add the manager’s email address in the “To” field. Keep the management’s email address in the CC field and keep the email address of the director and HOD in the BCC field.

All the people whose email address was added in the BCC field will not be able to see the email address of other recipients (Director and HOD of a different verticle) to whom the email has been sent. Hence, increasing the privacy factor.

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Key differences between CC vs BCC 

Here are the key differences between CC vs BCC:

• The term CC stands for Carbon Copy, whereas the term BCC stands for Blind Carbon Copy.
• All recipients in the CC field can see the email address of other recipients. On the other hand, all the recipients in the BCC field cannot see the email address of other recipients.
• The BCC field increases privacy by not showing the email addresses of other recipients to whom the email was sent. But, the CC field shows the email addresses of other recipients to whom the email was sent, thus decreasing privacy.

Conclusion

The main difference between CC and BCC is that when you add the recipient’s email address in the CC field, all the recipients can see the list or email addresses of other recipients to whom that mail is sent. On the other hand, when you add the recipient’s email address in the BCC field, recipients cannot see the list or email addresses of other recipients to whom that mail is sent.

In this article, we have explored CC vs BCC in great detail. If you have any queries related to the topic, please feel free to send them through a comment. We will be happy to help.

Happy learning!!