Undisclosed recipients

What are 'undisclosed recipients' in email 

When you send a mass email and want to protect the privacy of everyone on the list, you put a placeholder address or phrase in the "To" field and BCC the actual recipients. The result: every recipient sees "Undisclosed Recipients" in the To field and knows they're one of many but can't see who else got the message.

This is BCC used at scale, with a clear signal to the recipient that this is a broadcast message. It's honest. It's practical. And it protects people's email addresses from being exposed to a group of strangers.

The alternative is putting everyone in the To field. Then every recipient can see every other person's email address. That's a privacy problem, a professional misstep, and in some jurisdictions, a potential GDPR issue if you're exposing personal data without consent.

When to use undisclosed recipient 

Announcements to a large group where you don't want to reveal your full contact list. An event invitation going to 200 people. A business update to all clients. A newsletter sent directly from your email client rather than a marketing platform.

Internal company-wide emails from leadership (though most organizations now use dedicated tools for this).

Any situation where the recipients don't know each other and shouldn't see each other's contact information.

What it's not for: personal correspondence, replies to individual questions, or any message where you want to encourage dialogue among recipients. Undisclosed recipients signals "this is one-way." If you want conversation, use a different approach. 

How to send an email with undisclosed recipients

In Gmail:

1. Open Compose
2. In the To field, type "Undisclosed Recipients" followed by your own email address in angle brackets, like: Undisclosed Recipients youremail@gmail.com
3. Click BCC and add all your actual recipients there
4. Write your message and send 

Each BCC recipient receives the email addressed to "Undisclosed Recipients" and can't see the other addresses. 

In Outlook: 

1. Compose a new email
2. In the To field, type your own email address or a placeholder
3. Click the BCC button (if it's not visible, go to Options > BCC to enable it)
4. Add all actual recipients to the BCC field
5. Send as normal 

In Spark:

1. Compose a new email in Spark
2. In the To field, add your own address as the visible recipient
3. Click BCC in the compose window (or click the To field, which can reveal the Cc and Bcc fields) and add all actual recipients there
4. Send

Spark's compose window makes the BCC field easy to access. It's the same workflow as any other BCC send, just with the added step of adding yourself to the To field as a placeholder. You can also set up Auto Cc/Bcc so Spark adds these recipients automatically on future emails.

What message does undisclosed recipients signal to the reader

It's worth being honest about what happens when someone receives an email addressed to "Undisclosed Recipients." They know it's a mass send. They know they weren't individually addressed. That affects how they read the message.

For transactional content (an event invite, a product announcement, a company update) that's usually fine. For anything requiring personal credibility or trust-building, it undercuts the message.

The phrase "Undisclosed Recipients" in the To field is a transparency signal. Use it when that transparency is appropriate.

Best practices 

Use a proper email marketing platform for large sends. Tools like Mailchimp, Klaviyo, or similar handle deliverability, unsubscribes, and compliance automatically. Undisclosed recipients via BCC is a workaround for smaller, occasional sends.

Don't rely on undisclosed recipients for ongoing marketing. It lacks tracking, unsubscribe link functionality, and compliance features that proper platforms provide. 

Keep your BCC list under 100 addresses for client sends. Many email providers flag large BCC sends as potential spam. 

Related terms

• Snooze an email
• Bulk deleting
• Unsubscribe link
• Newsletter