Why not just have an easy button that you can click saying Do Not Allow Reply All?
I know that there are some ways you can limit reply-all availability, like in the URL linked here. But there’s a note: If recipients open this email in other mail applications except Microsoft Outlook, such as opening on web page via web mailbox, they can reply all this email.
I’m semi-tech savvy but I’m no programmer. It feels like it should be easy to do, so either I’m totally wrong or email services are really missing out on a great thing they could do.
Step 1: draft an email to yourself
Step 2: put all recipients in the BCC
Step 3: now “reply all” does jack shit
I just get users messaging me to ask “is this spam?” since there’s no one in the To: section or they weren’t in the CC or To section.
But I still do it to avoid this type of crap.
You can put in the first line of your message body:
<group of people> in bcc
I use BCC semi-frequently at work because it prevents all kinds of (mostly unintentional) annoyances from my coworkers. Mostly with automated emails related to reports and/or our case management system. BCC is your best friend when used selectively.
My favorite thing is when I notice the chain is emailing people who don’t need to see it and Reply All after moving them to BCC (I add a note saying “moved X to BCC” for transparency).
People love me :-)
Just don’t use it for mass mailing external addresses. That’ll get you on a blacklist faster than you’d think.
Just don’t use it for mass mailing external addresses. That’ll get you on a blacklist faster than you’d think.
What do you mean by this?
at my last job, someone from corporate sent out a mass email to literally everyone in the company (thousands of people) without using BCC and that chain ended up lasting for weeks before someone higher up eventually said that further reply alls will be punished lmao
Here’s my snarky take on it:
Because it’s not the job of the mail client to decide what parts of the protocol should be hidden from stupid users.
My wife and I were doing big renovations on our home and were dealing with lots of contractors. I would email them and include my wife’s email. Yet every contractor failed to press reply all when responding so my wife was constantly left out of the loop
It turns out people just don’t care to think about or understand basic technology.
This stuff really needs to be taught in school (like how we used to have typing and business communication classes)
I kind of think that contractors not being well versed in digital things is to be expected.
