How to Automatically CC or BCC Yourself in Outlook and Gmail

Carbon copying (CC) and blind copying (BCC) yourself on emails can be a helpful way to remind yourself of important emails or keep your colleagues in the loop. If you use Gmail or Outlook, you can easily automate the process so that all your emails are automatically CCed or BCCed.

This method isn't for everyone, and you might find that it could make for a messy inbox without applying some additional filters. But for those who want it, it works perfectly.

How to Automatically CC or BCC Yourself in Gmail

To automatically BCC or CC yourself (or any other email address for that matter) in Gmail, you will need a browser extension. The feature is not native to Gmail, and many third-party extensions require pretty extensive permissions to access your email.

The Auto BCC for Gmail from CloudHQ is a Chrome extension for Gmail with the least permissions required. It does not access browsing history outside the Gmail domain. Add this extension to the Chrome browser and create an account on CloudHQ.

Once the extension of your choice is installed and has access to your Gmail account, you can create a rule using the following steps:

Click the Compose button to create a new email.

Click the envelope icon next to the send button.

In the dialog box that opens, click Add New Rule.

Under When emails are sent from, you should see your email address already filled in.

In the drop-down menu beneath that, select the to anyone option.

In the then automatically drop-down list, select BCC (or CC if you prefer) and enter your email address.

Click Save Rule.

Click Close and compose your email as normal.

If you no longer want to use this extension, you can uninstall it via myaccount.google.com/permissions.

If you're not a Chrome user or don't want to grant third-party access to your email, a good workaround to automatically BCC is to use Gmail's filter and forwarding features.

How to Automatically CC or BCC Yourself in Outlook

Outlook users can automatically CC or BCC themselves using the email program's rules feature.

On the Home tab, click Rules > Manage Rules & Alerts.

Click New Rule.

Under Start from a blank rule, click Apply rule on messages I send and click Next.

If you want to apply this rule to all your sent emails, click Next again and Yes in the pop-up window. (To be selective, you can use the criteria listed to apply this automation only to certain types of emails.)

In the Step 1 section of the window, select Cc the message to people or public group.

In the Step 2 section of the window, click the people or public group link.

In the To field, enter your email address and click Next. If you don’t want to CC someone publicly, you can mimic a BCC by checking Move a copy to the specified folder in Step 1, clicking the Specified Folder link, and selecting your Inbox.

You can add optional exceptions to the emails you don't want to apply this rule. Click Next when done.

Enter a name for your rule and check the Turn on rule option.

Click Finish.

Keep Outlook and Gmail Neat and Tidy

Once you've created these rules in Gmail or Outlook, you won't need to tweak them again. They will run automatically indefinitely, until you turn them off. It's far quicker than manually adding yourself to the CC or BCC for every email!

Whether you use Gmail or Outlook, be sure to use features like labels and folders to keep your inbox organized—copying yourself into everything can get messy quickly.

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