It's hard to believe, but in this day and age there are still people out there who mass email others using the To and Cc fields. Email software should prevent this from happening. If you have more than ten addresses in the To and Cc fields combined, when you click “send” a dialog would pop up asking if you didn't really want to Bcc all of those people instead. Regardless of what you click in response, all of your outgoing email addresses are automatically converted to Bcc instead.

In the unlikely event that you actually know what you're doing, the dialog can be dismissed (and the message sent as addressed) by means of a keystroke command that is clearly listed in the help file, next to an explanation of why you shouldn't ever use it.
-- ytk, Jul 31 2013

That's weird. I just received exactly the same message by a Cc email.
-- not_morrison_rm, Jul 31 2013


Hopefully this will software will be either optional on installation or the threshold for operation should be customisable: my work regularly requires me to send time-critical emails to more than ten people and it is essential for the sake of transparency that all recipients are able to see who has received the email
-- calum, Jul 31 2013


No, it would be the default and mandatory. Like I said, you could bypass it easily if you knew the correct keystroke combination. But I suppose some difficult to find, out of the way option (perhaps in an obscurely named text configuration file) for setting the threshold would be acceptable. As long as you prove to the system that you Know What You're Doing, it would allow you to send the email to any number of recipients in the To field. Most likely though, the sender of an email with a lengthy visible recipient list is simply an ignoramus who is unwittingly aiding in the proliferation of spam and viruses.

Also: //time-critical emails//

No such thing. If it's time critical, don't use email. If you do use email, don't assume the sender even gets the message, much less gets it in a reasonable timeframe and is ready, willing, and able to immediately act on its contents.
-- ytk, Jul 31 2013


//No such thing. If it's time critical, don't use email. If you do use email, don't assume the sender even gets the message, much less gets it in a reasonable timeframe and is ready, willing, and able to immediately act on its contents.//

There *is* such a thing. It involves the participants all being aware of their responsibilities and checking email at an appropriate time. If the expected response doesn't arrive, then individual out-of-band communications may be necessary.
-- Loris, Jul 31 2013


//There *is* such a thing. It involves the participants all being aware of their responsibilities and checking email at an appropriate time.//

Thing is, it's impossible for all parties to an email (really, any form of asynchronous communication) to be *certain* that a message was received and will be acted on by everyone involved. Look up the “two generals problem” if you want to know exactly why this is true.

//If the expected response doesn't arrive, then individual out-of-band communications may be necessary.//

Which goes to my point—if it's truly time-critical, you need to use some other form of communication to verify receipt of the message. If you do not do so, it can be assumed that the message was not, in fact, time-critical. If someone fails to provide a necessary response to your email message in a timely fashion, it is presumed to be your fault for not using a more reliable form of communication, not theirs.
-- ytk, Jul 31 2013


No, time critical emails do exist. Often the communication needs to be recorded and observable by all parties. Typically it is time critical for only one or two of the recipients. Depending on how critical, the email may be followed up with a phone call or two to ensure that the email is received and understood.

Some of the recipients for whom the communication is lower priority may have filters to dump the message into a subfolder for later reference if needed.

Now if you took the argument further and said that this need is an indication of poor management structure, you might be right, but I request that YOU go talk to our CEO. You could also say that a system other than email may be more appropriate for documenting communication (we have a couple other systms), but email has the advantage that everyone has it and doesn't need to be given some new password. Making a tool annoying in an attempt force good practices seems like a backward approach.

I would not object to this feature being on by default if when the popup occurs it has the option to change the threshold right then and there. For my home email I would set the threshold higher to something more like 25 because I have a large extended family and often we keep in touch by email, including everyone. We don't abuse it (or aren't very chatty), so usually when there's no more than a couple reply-alls for any initial email. Yeah, some people use facebook for this sort of function, but I prefer email.
-- scad mientist, Jul 31 2013


At the risk of sounding dinosaur-like, from the beginning of time email has been "sent" by SMTP, which has bugger all "check to see if the recipient actually got this" functionality. So, just pot luck really.

Most clear way would be chat. Is it not possible to group people email-wise, like "sales department", "people who should know everything", "people who should never be told the whole truth" etc.
-- not_morrison_rm, Jul 31 2013



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