Several people have inquired as to how they can prevent their email address from being forwarded to a ton of people they don't know.  (You have seen this, of course.  You receive an email with a long list of email addresses to which the email has been sent.) It is never a good idea to share email addresses between people who don't know each other.  Doing so is a great way to accumulate angry friends.  When someone in your address books figures out that you shared their email address with a stranger who loves to forward jokes all day, you are going to be in hot water.  So, in an effort to save you from that, we have put together this instructional web page with two suggestions.

Suggestion #1 - Method #1   When you receive an e-mail with a long list of email addresses listed and want to pass it on to others, do NOT use the forward button.  Instead, copy the email to your clipboard (Highlight the text using your left mouse button, then right click and select COPY), open a NEW MESSAGE, and paste the text in the message portion of the new email (Click the cursor in the new message area then right-click and select PASTE.)  By using this method, you will stop the long trail of email addresses going to everyone and their uncle.  Please note:  If there is an attachment to the email and you want to pass that attachment on to others, you will need to safe the attachment first, then attach it to the new email. 
You would then use BCC: (Suggestion #2) to send the message to your friends.

Suggestion #1-Method #2  When you receive an email with a long list of email addresses listed and you want to pass the email onto others, click FORWARD as you normally would.  Next, go to the content area of the email, highlight all the former email addresses and then right-click and choose DELETE.  If there are numerous sections of email addresses, delete one section at a time until all the addresses are gone.  Now, you should be able to forward the email to whomever you want, using BCC: (Suggestion #2), without passing along strangers' email addresses.

Suggestion #2   If you are sending an email to two or more people - especially if they are not family and/or don't know each other - do NOT use the "TO:" option.  Instead, use the "BCC:" choice.  "BCC:" comes from the days before personal computers and stands for "Blind Carbon Copy"  A blind carbon copy is a copy of a letter or email sent to one person without the knowledge of the original recipient.  If you use this option in your mail program, each person receiving your email will see a message similar to:  "List Suppressed."

How to use BCC:

Outlook, Outlook Express, Vista Mail, Windows Live Mail  

1)  Open a new message

2)  Left click on the TO: icon (This is the icon with the address book and To: on the left of the blank line at the top.)

3)  A new window appears with your address book on the left and three areas for names on the right.

4)  Highlight the name of a person to whom you want to send your email and then click on the button marked BCC: on the right side of the window.

5)  Continue to move the names of the people on your list to whom you are sending the email.

6)  When done, click the OK button and continue with your email as you always do.

 

Microsoft Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, Gmail:

BCC: may need to be turned on before you can use it.  Open a new email and, if the BCC: line is not showing, find and click on "Show Bcc," or "Add Bcc,"  Once BCC: is showing, you can put names in from your address book in the same manner as shown above.

If you are using Mail software other than Outlook, Outlook Express, Vista Mail, Windows Live Mail, Yahoo, or Gmail, please refer to the help files for that program to review any differences between these methods.

Should you have any further questions regarding this matter, please feel free to contact us.