(PHP ActiveX) Email BCC Recipients

See more Email Object Examples

Explains the meaning of BCC recipients, how it is different than CC recipients, and how Chilkat handles BCC.

Chilkat ActiveX Downloads ActiveX for 32-bit and 64-bit Windows Note: The php_com_dotnet.dll may need to be enabled inside of php.ini.

<?php

// In the context of email communication, the BCC (Blind Carbon Copy) field is used to send a copy of an email
// to recipients without revealing their addresses to other recipients. When it comes to the MIME
// header of an email, the BCC email addresses should not be included.
// 
// The MIME header is a part of an email message that contains metadata and other information about the email,
// such as the sender, recipient(s), subject, and other details. However, the BCC field is meant to be a confidential field,
// and its purpose is to hide the recipients� email addresses from each other.
// 
// Including BCC email addresses in the MIME header would defeat the purpose of using BCC since it would expose
// the hidden recipients� addresses to the other recipients. This violates the intended privacy and confidentiality of the BCC feature.
// 
// To maintain the confidentiality of BCC recipients, the BCC field should only be used in the envelope of
// the email during the SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) transaction. The SMTP server handles the actual
// delivery of the email to the respective recipients while keeping the BCC information hidden from other recipients.
// 
// It is important to ensure that BCC email addresses are not included in the MIME header of an email to
// preserve the privacy and confidentiality of the recipients.

// -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
// To discuss how Chilkat handles BCC, let's first create an email with some BCC recipients.
// For versions of Chilkat < 10.0.0, use new COM('Chilkat_9_5_0.Chilkat.Email')
$email = new COM("Chilkat.Email");

$email->AddTo('Joe','joe@example.com');
$email->AddTo('Mary','mary@example.com');
$email->AddCC('Steve','steve@example.com');
$email->AddBcc('Jerry','jerry@example.com');
$email->AddBcc('Tom','tom@example.com');

$email->Subject = 'test';
$email->Body = 'test';

// Let's examine the MIME
print $email->getMime() . "\n";
print '----------------' . "\n";

// We have the following.
// Notice the BCC addresses are not present.  They are not included in the MIME header.

// MIME-Version: 1.0
// Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2023 13:57:22 -0500
// Message-ID: <34606FFCB4A440B20E549A223F2F7BF0EB10EE2C@SLICE>
// Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed
// Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
// X-Priority: 3 (Normal)
// To: Joe <joe@example.com>, Mary <mary@example.com>
// Cc: Steve <steve@example.com>
// Subject: test
// 
// test

// However the BCC address are still stored in the Chilkat email object.
// For example, you can examine the BCC recipients in the email object like this:
$numBcc = $email->NumBcc;
print 'Num BCC recipients = ' . $numBcc . "\n";

$i = 0;
while ($i < $numBcc) {
    print $i . "\n";
    print $email->getBcc($i) . "\n";
    print $email->getBccName($i) . "\n";
    print $email->getBccAddr($i) . "\n";
    print '-----' . "\n";
    $i = $i + 1;
}

// Output:

// Num BCC recipients = 2
// 0
// Jerry <jerry@example.com>
// Jerry
// jerry@example.com
// -----
// 1
// Tom <tom@example.com>
// Tom
// tom@example.com
// -----

// Thus, when the email is sent, it will also be sent to the BCC recipients,
// but the email received by each of the recipients (i.e. the raw MIME of the email) 
// should not and will not include the BCC email addresses.  There should be no way
// for the recipients to know that the email was sent to the BCC addresses -- because if 
// there is a way to know, then it is not truly BCC.

?>