Sending Emails With a Mozilla Thunderbird Mailing List

Here's how to protect the privacy of email recipients on a group email

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by Heinz Tschabitscher
An independent writer who has reviewed hundreds of email programs and services since 1997.
Updated October 15, 2018

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 is courteous to hide the names and email addresses of the individuals on the mailing list from all the other recipients. You 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, sending a message to all its members while protecting their privacy is easy.

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.

  3. Click on the second address line until To: appears next to it.

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

  5. Now click in the empty To: address field.

  6. Choose Bcc: from the menu that appears.

  7. Select the address book that contains the mailing list in the Address Book sidebar.

  8. Drag and drop the desired list from the sidebar to the Bcc: field.

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

  10. Click the Send button to send the email to all the people listed on the mailing list.