Email Tips

What are the CC/BCC fields in emails, and when and why should I use them?

The CC (carbon Copy) and BCC (Blind Carbon Copy) fields are there to enable you to email multiple people a message as follows;

Example 1:: You work for a company and want to proceed with an order that was sent from sales@whsmith.com – You also want to make your boss aware that you’ve placed the order.
You therefore reply from youremail@yourcompany.com and put yourboss@company.com in the CC field. This emails both the supplier and your boss in one.

If you don’t wish all email recipients to see hat you’ve included someone else in the communication, such as your Boss, you’d enter the email(s) in the BCC field.

Example 2:: Your forwarding on a funny joke or something of interest.

If you put everyone in the TO field you are SHARING their email addresses with everyone involved, and any parties which might then be forwarded the email later in the chain. This is great for spammers and virus writers as they can gather huge quantity’s of valid email addresses from one single email.

Doing the above the correct way you would put yourself in the TO field, (If your email client requires the TO field to contain a valid entry), everyone else goes in the BCC field. This way you won’t be sharing anyone’s email and wont therefore put your friends and colleagues at risk of ending up on Spam email lists.

What are email Read and Delivery Reports?

In the real world when sending letters or items of importance we often choose to send post via Recorded Delivery, meaning that we have proof that not only did we send it but it was also signed for at the recipients address.
Email offers the same sort of functionality, but it is Important to note “Not all servers support sending ‘Delivery  Reports’ & not all clients will send ‘Read Receipts’ “

When sending an email from a client such as Outlook, you can click on the options menu and select to request either Read or Delivery Reports, or Both. Example of Outlook 2013.

A ‘Read Receipt’ means that the ownness is on the receiver of the email to choose to send either a ‘Read’ or ‘Not Read’ status in reply. Some mail programs ask you whether you want to send a Read Receipt ‘Outlook being one of them’, others like the iPhone/iOS devices simply send one regardless.

A ‘Delivery Report’ is different in that the ownness is on the receiving mail server, so for wyremail.co.uk it’s our own server that sends out delivery reports. A delivery report confirms that a ‘Mail Server’ received the message and has sent it to the users mailbox. This doesn’t mean that the user has actually looked at their email or read it.

Sending large files or lots of pictures via email?

Email was never designed for sending large files, and it has been something that over time, mail servers have gradually increased their allowed mail size, with most now-a-days accepting an overall email size of 20Mb and some accepting 50Mb or above.

When sending other people files that are above 15Mb in size you should really consider an alternative option, such as file transfer sites, a list of which can be found here. We’re always interested in hearing about new services or programs of interest, so if you have any comments or alternatives you’d like to recommend please get in touch

Another great alternative, that many of us here use is DropBox. DropBox is essentially Synchronised online storage or Cloud based storage. Where it differs from some other cloud based stoarge, is that it synchronises all folders you wish between the cloud and any supported device(s). These devices include, PC’s, laptops, Macs, Linux computers and mobile devices like iPhones, iPads, Blackberry’s and Android based devices.

You can use it freely and store 2GB of data straight off, with up to 18GB of space when you refer people. So get an extra 500MB of space straight away by clicking our referral here
The Greatest things we love about DropBox;

1. It acts as an online backup for your most critical files
2. It allows you access files using your mobile, wherever you have a phone signal or Wifi connection
3. It Free – unless you need/want more space, and even then the plans are very reasonable
4. It has sharing with non DropBox users – Simply Right click on a file in your DropBox, and chose Share Link to get a public URL to send to a friend allowing then to download the file in question using any web browser
5. It has Advanced sharing features with other DropBox users – Such as creating a ‘Family Photos’ folder and sharing that with members of your family – you can then all add pictures and view changes as other members contribute to the folder.
6. It has secure access to your files via a Web Browser, so even if you left your laptop at home you can still securely access your files using another PC.
7. It has the ability for you to see and recover previous versions of changed or deleted files via event history.
8. It list all devices that have access to your account along with when the accessed and the ability to Unlink devices direct form the website (In case your phone or laptop is stolen or lost…)
9. It even has support to link to other applications, such as WPBackup an app that automatically backs up your WordPress to your dropbox account.
10. We shan’t go on any further otherwise we sound like we’re selling it on their behalf!

When sending large email first consider the alternative means, because temporary files can be better shared using a Public link to files in your DropBox account, and for sharing more permanent files between specific groups then shared DropBox folders can vastly same on time and hassle.