If you want to send the same email to multiple people without revealing their email addresses, there are a few ways to do this. This guide will show you how to send an email to multiple recipients individually in Gmail and Outlook and explain why you might need a specialized service to do that effectively. There are 3 main ways — here’s when to use each.
TL;DR
Use Bcc for small, one-off announcements where recipients shouldn’t see each other.
Use Mail Merge for 20-500 contacts when you want names or other fields.
Use an ESP like Selzy for recurring or large sends with templates, tracking, compliance, and better deliverability.
Why send mass emails without showing recipients
There are a number of cases when you might need to send an email to multiple contacts without them knowing who else is receiving the message. Salespeople may want to get in touch with their clients and prospects, while marketers might need to run email marketing campaigns to reach a wider audience and promote their products or services. Similarly, recruiters may need to update applicants or organizations on open positions.
The main benefit of hiding the entire list of recipients is that it feels more personal than a mass send. This often leads to higher engagement rates and a lower chance of ending up in the recipient’s spam folder.
Hiding recipients’ addresses protects privacy and avoids unwanted “reply all” threads.
How to send an email to multiple recipients individually in different clients
If you want to send an email to several people at once, you can use either the Cc (Carbon copy) or Bcc (Blind carbon copy) option.
Adding someone to the Cc list means that they will receive a copy of the email that is being sent to the original recipient. However, everyone on the Cc list will be able to see who else is receiving the email.
Bcc allows you to send an email to multiple recipients separately (without them knowing who else is receiving the email).
Although the Bcc method allows you to send mass emails without any recipient knowing they aren’t the only one who gets the message, it doesn’t support personalization (names, custom fields).
You can send mass emails without revealing all the recipients by putting them in the Bcc line.
How to send a mass email and hide recipients in Gmail
To send an email with hidden addresses in Gmail, follow these steps:
- Click the ‘Compose’ button.
- The ‘To’ section is where you enter the recipients’ email addresses. If you want to keep the email addresses of your recipients private, you can either leave the ‘>To’ field blank, or enter your own email address.
- Click on ‘Bcc’ (top right) and enter the addresses of other recipients, separated by commas.
- Write the email and click Send. That’s all.
How to send mass emails individually in Outlook
- To start a new email in Microsoft Outlook, click on the blue ‘New Message’ button in the top-left corner of your screen.
- To add people to the Bcc field, start by clicking on the Bcc link at the top of your email editor.
- Then, in the ‘To’ field, add your own email address. In the ‘Bcc’ fields, select or type in the email addresses of all the recipients. See screenshot for reference:
- When you are finished writing your email, click the ‘Send’ button to send it.
How to use the Mail Merge feature to personalize your emails
If you need to send the same email to many people but also want each message to look personal — for example, to include their names or company names — use the Mail Merge feature. It automatically creates individual messages for every recipient and hides their addresses, so each person receives a unique email instead of a bulk one.
The built-in Mail Merge feature is only available in Google Workspace (paid business/education accounts). Personal @gmail.com users don’t have access to it.
If you don’t see it in your interface, you may need to allow it in your account settings. If you don’t have it in your settings, check in with the Workspace administrator or change the Workspace edition.
- Create a Google Contacts label or prepare a Google Sheet with columns like “First name,” “Last name,” and “Email.”
- In Gmail, click Compose and then the Use mail merge icon on the right.
3. In the message body, type @firstname or @fullname to personalize the text.
Send a test email to yourself first, then click Send. Gmail will send separate emails to every contact.
Mail Merge in Outlook (Desktop)
You can also use Outlook’s built-in mail merge with Word and Excel.
- Prepare an Excel file with your contacts and their details.
- In Word, go to Mailings → Start Mail Merge → Email Messages.
3. Select your Excel list under Select Recipients → Use an Existing List.
4. Write your email, insert merge fields such as «First_Name», and choose Finish & Merge → Send E-mail Messages.
Challenges to be ready for
Using the Cc or Bcc methods to send emails to multiple recipients via popular email services like Gmail and Outlook and using the Mail Merge works well for moderate contact lists, but it still has limitations — such as sending caps, lack of analytics, and a higher risk of messages landing in spam if you send too many at once.
The emails may be considered spam
Sending an email to multiple recipients simultaneously using the Cc or Bcc methods may trigger spam filters. If you use email tools that aren’t designed for mass email campaigns, your emails could end up in the recipient’s junk folder — or worse, never make it to their inbox at all, resulting in poor or zero deliverability. To avoid this scenario, follow these simple tips on how to stop emails from going to junk.
The number of addresses may be limited
Some email services have a limit on how many addresses you can include in a bulk email to prevent possible fraudulent activity. For example, Gmail and Outlook limit the number of external recipients to 500 addresses per email. If your contact list exceeds the limit, you’ll need to wait until the next day to continue sending, which is quite inconvenient if you are running a marketing campaign. Moreover, there are quite a few other limitations in these and other similar services.
Recipients can reply to all
When someone hits “Reply all” to a Cc email, everyone on the list gets that reply. This can quickly become annoying for people who are not interested in the conversation.
This doesn’t apply to Bcc recipients. If you are a Bсс recipient of an email, by hitting the “Reply all”, you will only reply to the original sender and any contacts in the ‘To’ field. The other Bcc recipients will not see the reply.
It looks unprofessional
Bcc can feel impersonal in professional mailings, and it may confuse replies. This can look unprofessional and may leave a bad impression on your clients and partners.
What to do instead
When sending emails to multiple contacts, it is best to resort to the Bcc feature and email services like Gmail from time to time. If you need to communicate with a lot of people on a regular basis, it’s better to use a free bulk email service like Selzy. This way, you’ll avoid the pitfalls mentioned above and will be able to send professional mass email campaigns easily and conveniently. Plus there are other benefits to using such services too — more on that in the next section.
The best services for sending emails to multiple recipients without them knowing
There are professional email marketing services (ESPs) that can help you send multiple emails to large contact lists more conveniently. What’s more, they help you target your audience better than using a regular email account. Many ESPs even provide some effective tools or integrations that help you find an email address for potential leads, making it easier to grow your contact list. These services have features to help you measure your results, and you can easily send out mass marketing emails without having to use the Cc or Bcc options, and without any other limitations.
Email marketing services provide a number of advantages when it comes to bulk messaging:
- Email marketing services hide your contact list from recipients, so they cannot see who else is receiving the same message. This helps protect the privacy of your subscribers.
- You have access to reports detailing the success of your campaigns, including how many messages were sent, delivered, and opened. This helps you gauge the effectiveness of your efforts.
- Using a service lowers the chance that your email will end up in spam folders. These services ensure compliance with applicable laws and regulations, consistently build a reputation with internet providers, and use authentication methods to make sure a sender is legitimate.
- Email services offer segmentation and personalization features that allow you to send highly customized messages and target your offers to the specific needs and desires of your clients.
- Most services provide templates and email builders that you can use to create professional-looking emails, saving you time and effort. For example, Selzy provides an easy-to-use email builder that lets you create unique templates without knowing how to code.
- You can use email automation tools to send out mass emails, and avoid much of the manual work of responding to customers’ actions. With these tools, you simply set up a process once, and it runs on its own as long as you need it to.
- The support teams of email service providers can help resolve any issues that might come up. For example, they can help you if your emails get marked as spam, or if you’re having trouble with authentication, or any other problem.
Let’s take a closer look at some popular email marketing services.
Selzy
Selzy is a professional email service provider that offers a wide range of features, including a built-in constructor for subscription forms, 1,000+ free templates in the template library, and a convenient AI-enhanced email builder (beta), and an AI email assistant that helps generate email copy, images, subject lines, and more.
Selzy’s allows you to segment, automate campaigns, and track results with analytics. You can use Selzy’s A/B testing to see what works best for your audience and apply an automation tool to scale engagement.
Selzy’s clients praise the service for its fast email delivery and helpful customer support. It also has a great price point, starting at just $5.25 per month.
Mailchimp
Mailchimp is an advanced email service that offers a range of features that help boost sales and improve email marketing campaigns, including a bulk email verifier, custom domains, and behavioral targeting.
Marketers use Mailchimp to create and share social ads, personalized emails, landing pages, and postcards. Their support team is award-winning. However, the abundance of features in this service might be too much for smaller companies, plus it may turn out to be on the expensive side when you count all the costs.
AWeber
The AWeber email service is an all-in-one package for building, sending and tracking emails. Users can create professional-looking messages with their drag-and-drop builder or choose from ready-made templates to save time.
Other popular features such as segmentation and automation are also present, as well as an AI writing assistant and a smart designer to help you create branded emails. On the downside, there is only a free 14-day trial available, and the pricing is not the lowest on the market with the Lite plan starting at $12.5 per month.
Brevo (ex-Sendinblue)
Brevo, formerly known as SendinBlue, is a robust multi-platform marketing suite that includes an email marketing service among other solutions such as a sales platform, a customer data platform, and more. The email service offers a range of tools to optimize campaigns and is said to deliver excellent performance.
Some standout features include a simple drag-and-drop editor that makes it easy for newcomers, as well as the ability to personalize campaigns and integrate with existing CRM tools. Brevo also updates statistics so that their users know how effective each of their campaigns has been. There is also a free plan available, but the limits are rather low with just 300 emails per day available at this tier.
HubSpot
HubSpot is a well-known brand among email marketers that offers a bulk email marketing service among the vast variety of its products. This service comes packed with several automation features to help improve email marketing.
Other essential and advanced features are also there: a drag-and-drop builder, a selection of beautiful templates, bulk emails, an AI assistant, and more. However, this service, although it offers a free plan, might be too much for beginners and small business owners because they just wouldn’t know where to start with it.
Kit
Kit, known earlier as ConvertKit, is an email marketing tool that allows users to easily create and send mass emails, as well as to build landing pages to convert more visitors into subscribers and customers.
With multiple integrations, users can connect their favorite third-party marketing apps with Kit, making it a convenient solution for beginners and experienced users. Initially designed for bloggers and content creators, this service is still particularly popular with this audience. The ESPs free pricing plan is a rather generous offering, although it does have considerable limitations.
Whichever service you choose, all of them will hide the list of recipients from your subscribers.
That way, each recipient sees only their own address. That is why professional email services are a preferable choice when it comes to sending mass emails.
Final thoughts
There are many reasons you might want to email multiple recipients without letting them see who else is on the list. One reason is that it can make an email feel more personal, as if it was meant just for them. It also allows you to keep your recipients’ addresses private.
If you are wondering how to send mass emails without showing recipients, the only way to do this in email clients is to manually send emails using the Bcc option. Just keep in mind that Bcc has some limitations, such as:
- The possibility of being marked as spam
- The lack of personalization options
- The limited number of addresses
- The absence of automation
- The lack of analytics
In general, it is best to use Bcc sparingly. If you need to frequently send emails to large groups of people, it is better to use a professional email marketing service. These tools handle personalization, deliverability, and analytics at scale.
| Method | Privacy | Personalization | Deliverability | Use case |
| Bcc | Hidden | None | Limited | One-off |
| Mail Merge | Individual | Basic | Moderate | Small batches |
| Selzy | Individual | Advanced | High | Ongoing campaigns |
FAQ about sending to multiple recipients
How do I hide recipients in Gmail?
Compose → add yourself in To → click Bcc → add recipients → Send.
Is Bcc better than Mail Merge?
Bcc is fastest for small one-offs while Mail Merge sends separate, personalized emails that look more professional.
How many people can I email at once?
Limits vary by provider and reputation. As a safe rule, keep Bcc small and use Mail Merge or an ESP for larger sends.
Will Bcc trigger spam?
It can if you add too many recipients, lack authentication or use spammy content. Keep Bcc small and authenticate your domain.
When should I use an ESP like Selzy?
For when you need templates, tracking, personalization at scale, segmentation and compliance.
New and noteworthy on our blog 
