How to send to "Undisclosed recipients"?

Question

Level 1

9 points

How to send to "Undisclosed recipients"?

How can one send an email with a generic recipient name, like "Undisclosed recipients," in the To: field and with the email addresses of the actual recipients in the Bcc: field? I used to be able to do this after clicking the "Send Anyway" button in the "...does not appear to be a valid email address" dialog box that pops up after first attempting to send the email, but now, after clicking the "Send Anyway" button, a second dialog box pops up telling me that I cannot send the message using my ISP's - EarthLink's - server.

Btw, I spoke with an EarthLink rep and he was unable to resolve this issue. Together, we came up with the backup plan to create an actual Yahoo address to put in the To: field that would allow me to send the email with the real recipients' email addresses in the Bcc: field, but I would prefer not to do this.

Thanks,
Paul

PowerBook G4 Titanium, 1 GHz, Mac OS X (10.4.11), Mac Mail 2.1.3; 4G 60GB iPod; 1G 512MB Shuffle; iTunes 9.0.2

Posted on Dec 3, 2009 12:50 PM

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Answer 1

K Shaffer

Level 8

36,230 points

Dec 3, 2009 2:26 PM in response to PaulGK

That's probably an answer with an internal solution; where the actual sent email to
a URL represented by the words "undisclosed recipients" goes into an unsent folder.
Or, in the case of some email servers, there is a setting (the hoped for solution) for
the default use of the undisclosed name in the main send-to box; while Bcc is the
main thrust of real addresses for the sent email. You could supply a modified name
to the email app so your own "sent mail" receipt box gets those undisclosed recips.
You may be able to modify/use another account such as a gmail for those; they have
a larger archive capability.

I've invented false addresses for the main email send-to; while utilizing Bcc for most
everything. While I'm using gmail primarily, the question still applies. Of course the
possibility of a real email address with a strange "sent toall@strangers.net" may
actually be getting those same messages others were seeing only to them in Bcc
is the shocker. I wonder how many people do that and then their emails are public.

When you get an answer, I'll be looking back here!
Good luck & happy computing! 🙂

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Answer 2

jsd2

Level 5

6,245 points

Dec 3, 2009 2:54 PM in response to PaulGK

Have you tried just leaving the "To" field completely blank, with all the recipients in the Bcc field?

I do this using Yahoo mail - it works there, and at least when the mail is received in a Yahoo mailbox, the "To" field shows "undisclosed-recipients" instead of being blank. When the mail is received by another mailbox I tested, the To field was still blank.

If that doesn't work for you, you could send the mail to yourself in the "To" field, with everyone else in the Bcc field.

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Answer 3

dbsneddon

Level 4

1,552 points

Dec 3, 2009 5:34 PM in response to PaulGK

I generally do this by sending the message "To:" myself then
"Bcc:" everyone else.

Dave

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Answer 4

PaulGK Author

Level 1

9 points

Dec 4, 2009 8:10 AM in response to PaulGK

Thanks to all (K Shaffer, jsd2, and dbsneddon) who have responded as of this writing. I appreciate your input.

I know that it is possible to send this group email with the To: field either blank or addressed to myself while populating the Bcc: field with the actual recipients. I'd prefer not to do that as I'm certain that, at one time, I was successfully able to send the email with a generic recipient name in the To: field. I think that I may have put the generic name in parentheses, as in "(Newsletter Subscriber)", but if that was the case, that no longer works, either, as the To: field ends up blank on the receiving end when I now test that option.

Considering that the second warning box seems to be generated by my ISP, I'm thinking that my ISP may have made some change on their end that now prevents the sending of email if the To: field is not populated by an entry that looks like some sort of email address, real or fake. So, unless I receive any additional responses to this issue, I'll probably just enter my own email address in the To: field, as has been suggested. (My experience with leaving the To: field blank is that, more often than not, the field then appears blank to the recipient, and I would prefer to avoid that.)

Thanks,
Paul

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Answer 5

rccharles

Level 6

13,047 points

Dec 4, 2009 11:32 AM in response to PaulGK

Considering that the second warning box seems to be generated by my ISP, I'm >thinking that my ISP may have made some change on their end that now prevents the >sending of email if the To: field is not populated by an entry that looks like >some sort of email address, real or fake.

The design of the email interface is surprising. There are two fields for To, From, and bcc. What you see in the email & hidden fields for the real info. The fields do not have to be the same from a design perspective. I suspect your isp decided to verify that the information was the same, at least for to.

Robert

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