How do I send an email to multiple recipients without them seeing each other?

Put your own email address in the To field and add everyone else in the Bcc field. Each person receives the message but cannot see who else got it. For a group you email regularly, a group email service does this automatically and also handles replies, joins, and leaves.

What does undisclosed recipients mean?

Undisclosed recipients means the sender put all real recipients in BCC, so no addresses are shown. In Outlook it usually comes from a contact named Undisclosed Recipients placed in the To field, with the actual recipients hidden in Bcc.

How many people can I BCC in Gmail or Outlook?

Gmail allows up to 500 recipients per message on free accounts and up to 2,000 on Google Workspace. Outlook.com limits most accounts to a few hundred recipients per day. In practice, spam filters become suspicious of large BCC sends well before you hit these limits.

How do I send a mass email individually to each recipient?

Use mail merge (available in Gmail with Google Workspace, or Word with Outlook) or a group email service. A group email service sends every member their own individual copy of each message, with no other addresses visible and replies managed for you.

What does BCC stand for?

BCC stands for Blind Carbon Copy. People added to BCC receive the email but are hidden from everyone in To and Cc, and from each other.

Is BCC safe for large mailing lists?

BCC works for small groups, but it is not ideal for large lists. Providers often flag large BCC sends as spam, and many services have recipient limits.

Private Group Email Guide

How to Send a Group Email Without Showing All Recipients

You need to email a group - a neighbourhood watch, a club, a parent mailing list, a church group - but putting everyone's address in the To field means every recipient can see every other recipient's email.

That's a privacy issue, it looks unprofessional, and depending on your group, it might even violate data protection rules.

So how do you send a group email while keeping everyone's address private?

The quick answer: put your own address in the To field and every recipient in the Bcc field. Everyone gets the message, but nobody sees anyone else's address. It works the same in Gmail, Outlook, and every other email app — the steps for each are below.

Table of contents

How BCC works
How to hide recipients in Gmail
How to hide recipients in Outlook
The problem with BCC for regular group emails
Which method should you use?
FAQ

How BCC (Blind Carbon Copy) Works

Every email has three address fields: To, Cc (carbon copy), and Bcc (blind carbon copy). People in To and Cc can see each other. People in Bcc are invisible to everyone, including each other.

That makes BCC the go-to method for sending a group email without exposing addresses — and it's built into every email app you already use.

How to Hide Recipients in Gmail

Open Gmail and click Compose to start a new email.
In the compose window, click Bcc on the right side of the To field.
The BCC field appears below To and Cc.
Put your own email address in To.
Add recipients in Bcc, either as individual addresses or a contact label if you already created a group email in Gmail.
Write your subject and message, then click Send.

Gmail compose window with BCC field shown for private group email — Click Bcc in Gmail compose to reveal the BCC field and keep addresses hidden.

Each recipient sees only your address in To, not who else received the email.

How to Hide Recipients in Outlook

The BCC field is hidden by default in Outlook, which catches a lot of people off guard.

In Outlook on the web (outlook.com):

Click New mail.
Click Bcc beside Cc.
Put your own email in To and recipients in Bcc.

Outlook compose window with BCC field for hidden recipients — In Outlook, reveal Bcc first, then place your address in To and your group in Bcc.

In Outlook desktop (classic):

Click New Email.
Open the Options tab, then click Bcc.
Add your own address in To and recipients in Bcc.

If you've created a distribution list in Outlook - or you'd rather create an email group in Outlook first - you can type the group name in Bcc to add all members at once.

The “Undisclosed Recipients” Trick

You may have seen emails showing "Undisclosed Recipients" in To. This is a polished variation of BCC, especially common in Outlook:

Create a contact named Undisclosed Recipients using your own email address.
Save the contact.
Use that contact in To when composing.
Add actual recipients in Bcc.

Recipients see "Undisclosed Recipients" in To instead of your personal address, which looks cleaner and signals private sending. It's still BCC underneath, though, so everything in the next section still applies.

The Problem With BCC for Regular Group Emails

BCC works for a one-off announcement. If you email the same group every week — a committee, a congregation, a neighbourhood list — its drawbacks add up fast:

Key limitations

Replies only go to you. Recipients cannot reply to the whole group, so there's no discussion — just a broadcast.

You manage the list manually every time. Unless you set up a separate contact group or label, you are pasting addresses for every send.

Spam filters are suspicious of BCC. Providers flag large BCC sends as potential spam, and the risk grows with group size.

No unsubscribe, no archive, no management. Everything remains manual from start to finish — and "undisclosed recipients" in To looks impersonal.

This is exactly the problem a group email service solves. Your group gets one shared address, like neighbourhood@gaggle.email. Members email that address and the service delivers each member their own individual copy — no addresses exposed, replies managed, and people can join or unsubscribe themselves.

✓

How it helps

How Gaggle Mail Handles This

Free plan available

Gaggle Mail has a free plan and is built specifically for group email.

Privacy is automatic. Member addresses are never visible to each other.
Replies can go to the group. Configure whether replies go to everyone or only the sender.
Members can self-manage. People can join and leave without manual list maintenance.
Shared archive. Messages are stored in a browsable history.
Moderation. You can approve messages before delivery.
Digest option. Members can choose daily or weekly summaries.

It works with Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, and other providers. Members keep their existing inbox.

How Does It Compare?

Feature	Gaggle Mail	BCC	Undisclosed Recipients
Hides recipient addresses	✓ (automatic)	✓	✓
Replies go to the group	✓ (configurable)	✗	✗
Self-service join/leave	✓	✗	✗
Shared message archive	✓	✗	✗
Spam risk with large groups	Low	High	High
Moderation	✓	✗	✗
Digest emails	✓	✗	✗
Setup time	2 minutes	None	2 minutes
Works for ongoing groups	✓	Poorly	Poorly

For more detail on alternatives, see our comparison of group email services.

What to do next

If you send occasional one-off updates, BCC is usually enough. For ongoing group communication, a dedicated group email tool gives you private delivery, reliable replies to the full group, and less manual list maintenance.

For a full breakdown of all group email platforms, see our comparison of group email services.

Try Gaggle Mail free and set up a private group address in about two minutes.

Frequently asked questions

: BCC stands for Blind Carbon Copy. People added to BCC receive the email but are hidden from everyone in To and Cc, and from each other.
: No. BCC recipients in Gmail cannot see who else was BCC'd. They can see To and Cc, but BCC addresses stay hidden.
: Create a contact named "Undisclosed Recipients" with your own email address, put it in To, and place real recipients in Bcc. Recipients then see an intentional group label instead of your personal address.
: BCC works for small groups, but it is not ideal for large lists. Providers often flag large BCC sends as spam, and many services have recipient limits (for example, Gmail around 500).

What people are saying

Join thousands of communities using Gaggle Mail

“Gaggle Mail transformed how our neighborhood association communicates. It's so intuitive that even our less tech-savvy members participate actively. The moderation tools are exactly what we needed.“