Create an Outlook Rule that warns you if you were BCCed (How to Stop Embarrassing Reply-to-Alls)

If someone BCCed you on an email, chances are they didn't want other recipients to know that you were also one of the recipients. You can protect yourself from accidental Reply-To-Alls on these emails by creating a Rule so that Outlook automatically marks any messages where you aren't in the To or CC fields. Here's how ...

These instructions are for Outlook 2007 but they more or less apply to earlier versions of Outlook too.

Go to your Inbox.

Click the Create Rule Button on the toolbar to display the Create Rule screen.



Click the Advanced Options button.

Click the Next button. The message "This rule will be applied to every message you receive." will be displayed.

Click Yes.



In Outlook 2007, tick "flag message for follow up at this time". In Outlook 2003, tick "flag message for action in a number of days".

Click "follow up at this time" to bring up the Flag Message box (Outlook 2007).



Select No Response Necessary in the Flag To list.

Select No Date in the For list.

Click OK

Click Next to go to the "Are there any exceptions? Screen

Tick "except if my name is in the To or CC" box.

Click Next

Type a name in the space provided e.g. I was BCCed.

Click Finish.

The rule will automatically be applied to all new emails. The flags on emails on which you were BCCed will serve as a gentle reminder that you should not do a Reply-to-All on them.

If you want a more bullet-proof solution, try an Outlook addon product such as SendGuard 4Outlook. SendGuard can be setup to display warning messages for all Reply-to-Alls or for only those emails on which you were BCCed.





Because the messages are displayed when you actually click the Reply-to-All button, this provides a much higher level of protection.