You have probably received one of those emails sent to a huge group of people that did not utilize the BCC field. Instead, every person's email address was listed in the To: (or the Cc:) field.

This is not only unprofessional and annoying but also a security concern. Sending group e-mails this way may compromise the recipients privacy and expose them to spam.

Let's explore the right way to send e-mails to groups using the BCC field. In this example we will use Outlook Express as a sample e-mail client although you will find that the process is similar no matter what software you use to send e-mail.

To create the mailing list:

1. Go To Tools, Address Book

2. Click once on the "New" Icon and select "New Group" from the options.

3. Type a name for the group in the "Group Name" dialog box.

4. Click on the Select Members button.

5. All of your contacts should be displayed in the left listbox. If your contacts are seperated into diffrerent lists you may need to navigate to the correct one by using the arrow button right underneath the find button.

6. Click on a contact to select it (hold CTRL button down to select multiple) then click on the "Select" button to add them to the mailing list. After you click the "Select" button you should see them appear in the list to the right. When done adding contacts click ok, then exit the address book.

7. Now go to the address book and create a new contact called "Undisclosed Recipients". Put your own email as the email for this contact.

To use the mailing list for an email:

1. Click on Create Mail, then click on BCC and select the name of the mailing list (should be in bold compared to regular contacts) for the Bcc recipient.

2. Click on To and select "Undisclosed Recipients" for the To recipient. Send your message.

That's it! Happy e-mailing!

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This article is part of The Internet Made Easy Series by Kerry Wilson. To view more articles and tutorials vist her site at www.designveteran.com