HappyGirl said:
We figured out how to create 3 distribution lists and then use BCC to make
sure the email addresses wouldn't show however we are receiving an email from
ourselves and we weren't included in any of the distributions lists. Others
are receiving them which was the main goal but we get an email and it's From
us and To us. Is that automatic when we do a blind distribution list email?
As Roady suggests, a blank combo of To/Cc might not be allowed by your
unidentified e-mail provider (is this at work?). Since the Bcc ensures that
no recipients are listed, the result is the delivered e-mail has no e-mail
address as the recipient or the recipient's e-mail address is not included
in the To/Cc headers (i.e., the e-mail was not specifically addressed to
that recipient). Spam filtering (at the server or at the client via rules
or anti-spam software) can block such blank-recipient e-mails. E-mail
should always show that it was sent "to" someone even if all it does is to
identify the nature of the e-mail.
If, for example, you are sending a newsletter or bulletin, create a record
in your contacts folder with the name of your newsletter or bulletin as the
name of the person. In the e-mail address field, enter your e-mail address
(or whatever constitutes a legitimate reply e-mail address which is
monitored for those replies). Then add that contact in the To field.
Recipients will not see the other recipients specified in the Bcc field in
your e-mail client but will see something in the To header that helps them
identify why they received that e-mail (not all recipients will have a
preview pane enabled so all they see is the header list with To, From,
Subject, Date, etc).
Because you would be filling in the To/Cc header with your own e-mail
address (or your e-mail provider is doing it), and if you don't want those
items showing up in your Inbox, then use rules to move or delete them. You
can test on received e-mails where your e-mail address is both in the To/Cc
headers and in the From header. If it were a newsletter then there should
be sufficient text in the Subject to identify your own newsletter sent to
yourself and either move or delete it from the Inbox.
Otherwise, stop using a distribtion list in the Bcc field and leaving the
To/Cc headers blank and instead use MailMerge (an MS Word feature) or bulk
mailing program to send a separate copy of your bulk mail to each recipient.
Each recipient would be shown alone in the To/Cc header (so they don't see
the other recipients). Rather than send one copy of your e-mail to multiple
recipients and have the mail server slice out a copy of that one e-mail to
each recipient, you do the slicing on your end by sending a separate copy of
the e-mail to each recipient. The disadvantage would be you sending out
more e-mails, one for each recipient, which is slower than the mail server
sending out a duplicate to each recipient. The advantage is that you can
customized each copy of your e-mail, like adding the recipient's name inside
the message and other personal information to make it appear the e-mail was
sent to only that recipient.
