One of the features of email is that they are so easy to share with other people – forwarding emails allows us to share ideas and information, simply and without having to rewrite it ourselves. And we can forward to lots of people at once if we want to.

If you are forwarding emails, here are a couple of tips to make the process better for everyone:

• if sending to a group of people, use the bcc field instead of the to field to protect people’s privacy and make it harder for spammers to get hold of addresses (your friends may not abuse an email address, but  if they forward it to someone who forwards it…)
• when forwarding a newsletter you are subscribed to, delete the information at the end of the email (this can be login details, unsubscribe links and subscription management details) first so that no one else can access your subscription
• double check what is in the email – the final part of an email may be great to send to Fred, but check that earlier parts of an email trail are suitable for Fred to read
• consider who you are forwarding to – don’t send it just because you can. Send emails that are likely (or at least possibly) of value to the recipient. You may not be selling anything or trying to distribute a virus, but your friends still don’t want piles of irrelevant emails

Filed under: Websites, community