BCC vs CC in Email: What's the Difference and When to Use Each

CC (Carbon Copy) and BCC (Blind Carbon Copy) both let you send an email to multiple recipients. The difference: CC recipients can see each other's email addresses. BCC recipients cannot — and other recipients can't see them at all.

Use CC when: you're keeping someone in the loop on a conversation they're part of (a colleague, your manager), all recipients know each other, and transparency about who received the email is appropriate.

Use BCC when: you're emailing a group where people don't know each other (event invites, newsletters, announcements), you want to protect recipient privacy, or you're forwarding a message to someone without the original sender knowing.

The most common BCC mistake: emailing 50 people by putting them all in CC instead of BCC. Every recipient can now see every other recipient's email address. This is a privacy violation — you've shared contact information without consent. Always use BCC for group emails to people who don't know each other.

A common spam trick: phishing emails are sometimes sent BCC to a list, with only the attacker's spoofed address in the To: field. If you receive an email where the "To:" address isn't yours but you still received it, you were likely BCCd — a signal the email may be mass-sent phishing.

For inbox cleanliness: CC and BCC abuse creates "reply-all storms" — when someone hits Reply All on a group CC email, everyone gets flooded. If your inbox is full of these, Gorganizer can identify and bulk-delete old group thread emails.