Disable 'reply all'

Question

Disable 'reply all'

I sent out an email to a dozen or so people, with all but the first address in the BCC field. One of the recipients has replied to me but his reply seems to have been sent toe everyone on the list - rather defeating the purpose of a blind carbon copy. He uses a mac and so I gues he clicked on 'reply all' rather than 'reply'.

Is there a way to prevent recipients replying to all addresses listed in CC or BCC? Otherwise, how do you keep traffic confidential?

2.8ghz Intel iMac, Mac OS X (10.5)

Posted on Aug 14, 2008 2:52 AM

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Answer 1

Mulder

Level 6

8,990 points

Aug 14, 2008 8:30 AM in response to Roger Billcliffe1

Email addresses in the BCC field are not available to anyone except the original sender, so this recipient in question could not have sent a reply to everyone, because their email doesn't have the information for any other recipient. They could click Reply or replay all and it would make no difference; you are the only one who would get a reply.

Mulder

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Answer 2

Aug 15, 2008 12:55 PM in response to Mulder

Yep, that's what I would have thought, but I sent out six emails, 5 bcc, and one recipient's reply went to one of the bcc addresses - but there was no way he could have guessed that this recipient was on the original subscription list. I don't get it.

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Answer 3

Mulder

Level 6

8,990 points

Aug 15, 2008 1:00 PM in response to Roger Billcliffe1

Then I can only guess that there is a problem with your installation of Mail. Have you upgraded to 10.5.4 yet, since your profile says you're running 10.5? If not, you should do that immediately.

Have you tried creating a new User Account and testing it in Mail there? If the problem persists there, it's system-wide; otherwise it's limited to your primary account.

Mulder

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Answer 4

Aug 15, 2008 3:00 PM in response to Roger Billcliffe1

Have you asked the sender? In your initial post you assume the reply went to all the Bccs, now you say it went to one - but do you know if it went to that one because your correspondent hit reply, or because your correspondent thought this other person might be interested in the reply without knowing that they had been an original recipient?

Establish the facts before looking for a solution.

AK

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Answer 5

Aug 16, 2008 3:05 AM in response to Austin Kinsella1

I assumed that it went to all because it went to one. The exact sequence of events is that I wrote to 'a' with blind copies to b, c, d, e & f. B (who uses a Mac) replied to me but his reply also went to 'a', an address that he would not have known and could not have guessed would have been on the original subscription list. 'A' is a colleague and she was surprised to have received the email from 'b'. All of the other recipients (who don't use Macs) have sent replies which did not get copied to 'a'. Given the circumstances and content of the email I did not want to broadcast that it seems to have become common knowledge.

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Answer 6

Aug 16, 2008 4:35 AM in response to Roger Billcliffe1

I think I see what has gone wrong. I assumed that a bcc would substitute the address of each recipient when it was delivered. I've done a test mailing and I now see that all of the bccs are delivered with the name of the first recipient in the 'to' field. This was not what I expected to happen and it explains how one recipient replied to the first addressee. Sorry for the confusion.
But…is there a way to send an email to several addresses without the address of the first recipient appearing on all of the bccs?

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Answer 7

Aug 16, 2008 5:16 AM in response to Roger Billcliffe1

Oops. 😟

He probably click Forward instead of Reply but didn't notice it even-though Mail adds "Begin forwarded message:" at the top of the new message. Also the To: is blank when you forward an E-Mail!

Here's how to keep that from happening AGAIN!

Open a new Mail Message and on the left, next to From: is a little box. Click on it! Remove CC & add Reply To:. And make it a habit to always use the Reply To: and Bcc:. If Spam Filters and/or User Rules are blocking a blank To: then use your E-Mail Address to let it pass Filters/Rules. You can always delete it when it hits your In Box. And it's not a problem using the same E-Mail Address in the To: and Reply To:.

Later ...
!http://homepage.mac.com/buzzlightgear/Buzz.tiff!
Buzz

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Answer 8

Aug 16, 2008 5:30 AM in response to Roger Billcliffe1

Simplest is to use your own address as the To:, and put all the intended recipients in as BCC:. Some people just leave the To: blank, but this will cause some ISP or recipient spam filters to treat it as spam.

Anything in the BCC: field is not seen by any recipient.

AK

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