Sending Emails With a Mozilla Thunderbird Mailing List

How to protect the privacy of email recipients on a group email

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by Heinz Tschabitscher
A former freelance contributor who has reviewed hundreds of email programs and services since 1997.
Updated October 25, 2019

A mailing list is a subset of Mozilla Thunderbird's Address Book. When you send an email to all the members of a mailing list, it's courteous to hide the names and email addresses of the individuals on the list from all the other recipients. You can accomplish this by addressing the email to yourself and adding the members of the mailing list as BCC recipients. This way, only the recipient's address and yours is visible. After you set up a mailing list in Mozilla Thunderbird's address book, here's how to send a message to all its members while protecting their privacy.

How to Send a Message to a Mailing List in Mozilla Thunderbird

To compose an email to all members of an address book group in Mozilla Thunderbird:

  1. In the Thunderbird toolbar, click Write to open a new email.

  2. Enter your own email address in the To: field.

    Screenshot of Mozilla Thunderbird

  3. Click on the second address line and change To: to Bcc:.

    Screenshot of Mozilla Thunderbird

  4. Click on the Contacts toolbar button to access your email addresses and mailing lists.

    If your version of Thunderbird doesn't show the Contacts button, right-click on the toolbar and choose Customize. Drag and drop the button for Contacts to the toolbar. You may also be able to open Contacts by using the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Shift+B.

    Screenshot of Mozilla Thunderbird

  5. Find the mailing list in the Contacts list and drag and drop it into the Bcc: field.

    Screenshot of Mozilla Thunderbird

  6. Compose your message and attach any files or images.

  7. Press Send.