How to Send a Group Email in Gmail Without Showing Addresses
Updated 10 min read
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To send a group or mass email in Gmail without showing addresses, put your own address in To and everyone else in Bcc. People in Bcc can't see each other's addresses. But Gmail still tells each of them they were Bcc'd, and if you put the list in To or Cc by mistake, everyone sees it. For a quick note to a few people, Bcc is fine. When people shouldn't know about each other, send each one their own email with a mail merge like YAMM.
How do you hide recipients in Gmail with Bcc?
To hide recipients in Gmail, click Compose, put yourself in To, click Bcc, add everyone else there, and send. Here are the five steps on a computer.
Step 1: Click Compose
Open Gmail and click Compose at the top left. A new message opens.
Step 2: Put your own address in To
Type your own email address in the To field, so yours is the only address there. If someone in Bcc clicks Reply all, their reply comes back to you alone, not to a list.
If you like, type a name in front of your address, like Undisclosed recipients <you@gmail.com>, with your own address between the < >. The name is optional. It's Bcc that hides the list.
Step 3: Click Bcc
Click Bcc at the right of the To line, and a Bcc field opens. Bcc means "blind carbon copy". Gmail's help page says people you add in Bcc can't see the name or email address of anyone else in Bcc.
Step 4: Add everyone else, or a contact label, in Bcc
Type or paste the addresses into the Bcc field, separated by commas.
If you email the same people often, save them once under a label in Google Contacts and add the whole label each time. Start typing the label's name in the Bcc field and pick it from the list. A label adds only each contact's default address, so someone with two addresses gets the email at one of them. To make a label, see how to create email groups in Gmail.
Step 5: Write your message and send it
Write one subject and one message that work for everyone. Before you click Send, look at the top of the draft once more. The list should be in Bcc, not in To or Cc.
How do you Bcc in the Gmail app on Android or iPhone?
On Android, iPhone or iPad, tap Compose at the bottom right. Put yourself in To, tap the arrow at the right of the To line to show Cc and Bcc, add everyone else in the Bcc field, and tap Send at the top (Gmail Help).
Can people in Bcc see each other or reply all?
They can't see each other, but any of them can click Reply all.
Google says each Bcc person sees that they were added with Bcc, and sees everyone in To and Cc. People in To and Cc don't know anyone was Bcc'd. If your recipients don't use Gmail, they may not see that they were Bcc'd. So if you want people to get your email without knowing it went to a group, Bcc can't do that. A mail merge can, because each person gets an email addressed only to them.
Since July 2026, Gmail shows a Bcc recipient a warning before they reply all, "You're not on the recipients list, replying to all lets everyone know you were included", and asks them to confirm. It doesn't block the reply.
A reply all from someone in Bcc goes to you and to everyone in To and Cc, but not to the other Bcc people. So if other people are in To or Cc, they get that reply, and now they know that person got your email too. That's why step 2 puts only you in To.
What happens if your list ends up in To or Cc?
If your list ends up in To or Cc, every recipient sees every other recipient's address. One wrong field in a hurry shows your whole list. If we had to pick one Bcc mistake to worry about, this would be it.
It happens a lot. The UK data regulator, the ICO, says failing to use Bcc correctly "is one of the top data breaches reported to us every year". The ICO also said nearly 1,000 Bcc breaches had been reported to it since 2019. Education reported the most, then health, local government, retail and charities.
In 2024, the ICO fined the Central YMCA of London £7,500. An email to people on an HIV support programme went to 264 addresses in Cc instead of Bcc, and 166 people could be identified, or potentially identified, from it (ICO).
For sensitive personal information, the ICO says Bcc isn't enough on its own and points to alternatives "such as bulk email services, mail merge, or secure data transfer services" (ICO).
Can you unsend an email in Gmail?
Gmail's Undo Send lets you cancel an email for 5 to 30 seconds after you send it. Right after you send, click Undo. To choose how long you get, open Settings > See all settings and set Undo Send to 5, 10, 20 or 30 seconds. In the Gmail app, tap Undo right after "Sent" appears. After that, the email is sent and you can't stop it.
For screenshots of each step, see how to retract an email in Gmail.
How many people can you Bcc in Gmail?
A personal Gmail account can send one email to up to 500 recipients, and every address in Bcc counts. Google Workspace allows more. Both also limit how much you can send in a day:
| Personal Gmail | Google Workspace | |
|---|---|---|
| Recipients in one email | 500 | 2,000 (500 outside your organization) |
| Each day | 500 emails | 2,000 emails, 10,000 recipients (3,000 outside your organization) |
| Wait after a limit | Usually 1 to 24 hours | Up to 24 hours |
On Workspace, Google says trial accounts can send only 500 emails a day. The 10,000 counts every address in every email, so 5 emails, each to 10 people, count as 50. Workspace counts its limits over the last 24 hours, not since midnight, and Google says they "can change without notice".
Say you work at a company on Google Workspace and want to Bcc 600 customers at other companies. That email won't go through, even on Workspace, because one email can go to no more than 500 people outside your organization. You'd have to split the list.
For a list you email again and again, Google suggests a Google Group, so you send to one group address instead of hundreds of people. The group's owner or a manager decides whether members can see each other's addresses.
How do you send a mass email in Gmail to each person separately?
A mail merge sends each person on your list their own email, with only their address in To. There's no list in the email to leak. Each email reads like it was written to that person, and it can greet them by name. For other ways to do this in Gmail, see how to send the same email to multiple recipients separately.
How do you mail merge from a Google Sheet with YAMM?
YAMM (Yet Another Mail Merge) is a mail merge add-on for Gmail and Google Sheets that sends each row of your sheet its own email from your Gmail account. It works with personal @gmail.com and Google Workspace accounts, and more than 18,000 users have rated it 4.7/5 on the Google Workspace Marketplace.
- Install YAMM from the Google Workspace Marketplace.
- Make your list in a Google Sheet. Add an Email column with one address per row, plus any columns you want to use in the email, like First name.
- Write your email as a Gmail draft, in Gmail on the web. Leave the To field empty. YAMM fills it from the Email column when it sends, so each person's To line holds only their own address. Type markers like
{{First name}}wherever a detail goes, in the subject or the body. - Send it from the sheet. Click Extensions > Yet Another Mail Merge: Mail Merge for Gmail > Start Mail Merge. Make sure YAMM picked your Email column, pick your draft under Email Template, turn on tracking if you want it, and click Send emails.
If one cell in your Email column holds several addresses, YAMM sends those people one shared email. To keep everyone's address private, put one address per row.
Tracking works on every plan. With it on, YAMM writes a status on each row, like EMAIL_OPENED, RESPONDED or UNSUBSCRIBED. And if you'd rather not show your main address either, YAMM can send from a Gmail alias.
If a colleague needs every email, add them in Bcc in your draft and YAMM adds them to each one. Each copy counts toward YAMM's daily limit, so a merge to 300 people with one colleague in Bcc uses 600 (Mail Merge vs. CC explains the options).
YAMM's daily limit depends on your plan, and it counts recipients over the last 24 hours:
- Free: up to 20 recipients a day.
- Pro gmail.com, on a personal @gmail.com account: up to 400 a day.
- Pro Google Workspace: up to 1,500 a day per user. A new Workspace account stays at 400 a day until Google raises its limits. Google does that after your company has paid it $100 in total, and says it can take up to 75 days after that.
Gmail's limits in the table above still apply, whatever your YAMM plan. On Pro Google Workspace, once your account gets the full 1,500 a day, the 600 customers from the example above fit in one day, each in their own email. For a full walkthrough with screenshots, see how to send personalized mass emails.
Does Gmail have a built-in mail merge or multi-send mode?
Gmail's built-in mail merge replaced multi-send mode, and only some paid Google Workspace plans have it. Free Gmail and Business Starter don't. Google lists Workspace Individual, Business Standard and Plus, Enterprise Standard and Plus, and Education Standard and Plus.
Google's steps are for Gmail on a computer: in a new email, click Use mail merge next to the To line. Each person gets their own email, replies come back in separate threads, and Gmail adds an unsubscribe link to every email.
Google's help also lists its limits:
- It sends to up to 1,500 recipients a day.
- Its markers, which Gmail calls merge tags, can't go in the subject line.
- You can add only one address in Cc or Bcc, and that person gets every email. If your recipients come from a spreadsheet, you can't add Cc or Bcc at all.
YAMM works on personal @gmail.com and Google Workspace accounts, and its markers can go in the subject line.
Bcc or mail merge: which should you use?
To decide, ask two questions about your list.
If a mistake put everyone in To, would anyone mind? Would anyone mind knowing the email went to a group? If both answers are no and it's a handful of people, Bcc is fine. Otherwise, send one email per person.
Sending each person their own email from Gmail is what we've done since 2011, when YAMM started as a script for a company that had just moved to Google Apps (Google Workspace's old name) and lost its mail merge.
