How to avoid replying to a mail when I'm in blind copy

I'm working with Microsoft Outlook 2016, and I just received a mail where I've been put in blind copy. This is quite dangerous because the people in the To and CC list should not be able to contact me, and when I reply all to this mail I risk exposing my e-mail address to those people, which I don't want.

In order to avoid this, I'd like some message box to appear whenever I press the Reply all button of an e-mail where I'm in blind copy.

I've just checked the rules and I don't find a way to get this done, and creating a rule for marking such mails in some way also seems not to be possible: here are the relevant conditions for creating rules I've found:

sent only to me
where my name is in the To box
where my name is in the Cc box
where my name is in the To or Cc box
where my name is not in the To box

As you see there is no where my name is in the Bcc box (which would be what I need).

I can invent a workaround, like creating another inbox, using the where my name is in the To or Cc box, redirect all mails to that inbox, so that all messages in blind copy stay in my regular inbox, but I don't like this workaround.

Does somebody have an idea on how to help me?

Dominique

Posted 2017-11-10T07:51:38.287

Reputation: 1 013

Answers

You also have an exception "except if my name is in the To or Cc box", that should work.

The result of such an exception is a rule, which looks as follows:

The message, shown when such a message arrives, looks as follows:

Máté Juhász

Posted 2017-11-10T07:51:38.287

Reputation: 16 807

To complement on this answer: I would move all mail where you are in the BCC to a different folder rather than a message, or alternatively flag it with a tag or give it a color. Much safer that way. – LPChip – 2017-11-10T08:54:04.207

1Unfortunately in the meanwhile I've understood that this solution has a drawback: I'm included in quite some distribution lists, and now I need to add all those cases one by one to get the rule working. – Dominique – 2017-11-13T07:33:47.487

@Dominique: have a look here, this may help.

– Máté Juhász – 2017-11-13T08:08:54.880

Thanks, @MátéJuhász. I had a look at this and I can imagine it's helpful for several people. However the mentioned line or similar was not found in the internet headers, and as mentioned in SuperUser post (https://superuser.com/questions/476620/finding-bcc-in-internet-mail-headers) it's not always possible to determine that a mail has been sent with somebody in BCC. Meanwhile I've re-run the rule, using the extra configuration of all distribution lists I've found so far, and the results are promising (but I realise that for every new distribution list, I'll need to do some extra manipulation).

– Dominique – 2017-11-13T09:14:43.117

I'd like some message box to appear whenever I press the Reply all button of an e-mail where I'm in blind copy.

I notice this in the last couple of days, I do not know how long it has been deployed.

Currently with Outlooke 2016, if you click reply all to a message you have been blind copied, you get the message.

Your address was hidden when this message was sent. If you Reply All, everyone will know you received it.

James Jenkins

Posted 2017-11-10T07:51:38.287

Reputation: 500