What is the Difference Between CC and BCC?
By BYJU'S Exam Prep
Updated on: September 25th, 2023
Difference Between CC and BCC: CC refers to “carbon copy,” and BCC stands for “blind carbon copy” in email terminology. The major difference between CC and BCC in email is that carbon copy (CC) recipients are visible to all other recipients, whereas BCC recipients are not. An e-mail message can contain addresses in any of the three fields to define the recipients:
- To: field recipients are the audience of the message
- CC: field recipients are those who the author wants to know about the message publicly (carbon copy)
- BCC: field recipients are those who are informed of the communication secretly or covertly and cannot be viewed by the other addressees.
With over 200 billion emails being sent or received every day, it is essential to know “the CC and BCC difference” to use the functions efficiently. Here, we will discuss CC, BCC, and the difference between CC and BCC based on various factors; after that, we will discuss what is BCC and CC in emails in the upcoming sections.
Table of content
What is the Difference Between CC and BCC?
Both CC and BCC send additional recipients copies of an email. The major difference is that CC recipients can be seen by others, whereas BCC recipients cannot. For more information, we have provided the difference between CC and BCC in the table below.
CC vs. BCC – Difference and Comparison
| CC | BCC |
| CC stands for Carbon Copy. | BCC stands for Blind Carbon Copy. |
| We can keep management and staff informed through CC. | Using BCC, we can safeguard the privacy of management and employee email addresses. |
| All additional email responses will be sent to each recipient. | There will be no further responses until we forward the mail to the addressee. |
| CC makes your email list available to all recipients and joins them in a continuous conversation. | Meanwhile, BCC recipients are invisible to each other and are not included in email responses. |
| Use CC to keep management and other stakeholders informed about project status. | When you want to include additional recipients but don’t want them to know who else is receiving the email, use a BCC email. |
| All receivers on the CC list see the email’s other recipients. | All BCC recipients are unaware of the email’s other recipients. |
You can also check the difference between Email and Gmail here.
What is CC in Email?
The term carbon copy refers to the fact that everyone whose address comes after the CC: header will receive a duplicate of the message. The CC header would also appear inside the receiving message’s header.
CC works in the same way as the To field. Only the important recipients of the email should appear in the To field, according to email etiquette. Primary recipients are the ones who are most affected by the email and are expected to reply or act.
Responding and acting is, on the other hand, usually voluntary for CC recipients. The primary function of the CC field is to keep someone informed simply. For this reason, it’s commonly referred to as a courtesy copy.
What is BCC in Email?
BCC stands for blind carbon copy, which is similar to CC except that the receivers’ email addresses do not appear in the received message header, and the recipients in the To or CC fields will not be aware that a copy was sent to them. They will not see any subsequent responses in the thread, and other email recipients will not know who is BCC’d.
For mass emails and communications to email subscribers, BCC is the most typical format. It safeguards receivers’ privacy by concealing their email addresses from unknown recipients. Furthermore, the email appears cleaner and more personal without a big list of recipients.
Further, let us see some other related articles.
