We’re all familiar with the phrase ‘I’ll CC you on that’ to describe when we include someone in an important email.

But what does CC mean, and when should it be used?

Never fear, as we’ve broken down everything you could possibly need to know about CC in the following post. 

P.S. Looking for a short and snappy explanation of CC? Head over to the EcoSend glossary.

Otherwise, stay tuned! 

What Does CC Stand For?

CC stands for carbon copy. 

The origins of CC go back to the days of typewriters when if somebody wanted to make a copy of a letter they were typing, they would add a sheet of carbon paper behind the paper. This would give them an extra version of the document, without having to manually type it out again saving the typist a lot of work.

Even though we now type our emails out on a computer, the term CC has stuck around. Now, we use CC to describe adding multiple recipients to an email. 

How To CC An Email

In the recipient line that says ‘to’, you will normally find ‘CC’ and ‘BCC’ on the right-hand side of the form.

Click CC and the recipient box will expand for you to be able to add other email addresses beyond the primary recipient. 

Once all recipients have been added, this means they will have been CC’d on your email. That is so long as the message reaches their inbox (i.e. their mailbox isn't full so can receive new messages and your email also isn't filtered as spam).

If you are going to use CC, it is considered good email etiquette to mention that others have been CC’d on the email. This is especially the case if the contents of the email could be considered sensitive, confidential or important for some other reason. 

Recipients may then choose to reply directly to the sender or hit ‘reply all’ to send their response to everyone who was CC’d in the original email. 

Is It CC’d Or CC’ed?

When you want to let someone know that you have used CC in email (i.e. during a work meeting), you need to be able to describe CC in the past tense. 

As one of the most popular questions the internet asks about CC, it is generally agreed that CC'd is preferred.

However, some argue that CC’ed is grammatically correct, yet feels more of a hassle to type out.

So although CC’d is mostly used, if you do use CC’ed it’s probably not something that is too much of a worry.

If you are wondering, CC’ing is also preferred over CCing (i.e. without the apostrophe).

Want to go further on this topic? There’s a whole CC grammar rules rabbit hole to get lost in here. 

When Should CC Be Used?

When you CC someone, it is the email version of having various people in the room to be able to include them in the conversion. 

Crucially, everyone who is CC’d in an email will be able to see everyone else who has also been CC’d. Therefore, CC must only be used when it is appropriate to share the email addresses and names of everyone in the email. 

There are various reasons why you might need to use CC. Primarily, you are saving the need to send the same email to lots of people individually. 

However, there may also be a need to document the conversion by CC’ing certain people related to the issue. This would demonstrate that everyone who needs to be kept up to speed is being informed. 

Another way that CC is commonly used is to delegate tasks among a team or between different teams. This can gather lots of individual responses to generate ideas or feedback, though is only practical for smaller lists. Otherwise, the sender may be bombarded with too many responses. 

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What Is The Difference Between CC And BCC? 

CC stands for carbon copy, and by adding a B in front to make BCC this now means ‘blind carbon copy’. In other words, you have added other recipients to the email, although other recipients won’t know this. Therefore, they can’t see other email addresses.

You may need to use BCC instead of CC when you need to maintain data privacy. 

BCC can also help avoid large email threads. In addition, BCC can be used to avoid ending up in the spam folder, which can happen if you try to send an email to a large number of recipients using CC. 

Where To Be Cautious With CC’ing 

As we’ve just mentioned, when you CC other people into your email, this also reveals their email addresses to others in the message. So naturally, you need to consider if this could pose any issues in terms of data privacy or confidentiality. 

Outside of privacy concerns, CC can also create issues such as:

• Making it unclear who is responsible for a certain task, because the CC is addressed to everyone instead of just one person. However, the contents of your message can look to solve this. 

• Overloading inboxes by sending so many emails to multiple recipients at once. Therefore, CC shouldn’t be used without good reason.

• If you CC someone who is higher up in the chain of authority, this may be perceived as ‘overstepping’ depending on the context of the issue. 

• CC’ing people unnecessarily can be considered annoying and even a distraction from the task at hand.

The easiest way to use CC to your advantage is to consider whether it’s necessary, and also whether including lots of people publicly within the message is appropriate. 

Otherwise, BCC or individual communication with each recipient might be the better way to go. 

As a business, drawing up CC guidelines for your team can also be beneficial, especially in terms of navigating confidentiality or data protection issues. 

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Now that you’re good to go with CC, is your email platform giving you everything you need to succeed?

EcoSend is the world’s first sustainable email platform. As well as giving you endless features to engage your audience, we can also help reduce your carbon footprint as a business.

New to EcoSend? Start your free 7 day trial to see if we offer the right fit for your business. 

If you have any questions about EcoSend, or want us to cover other topics in a future post then please get in touch.