Create new Mail messages with BCC field open

Aug 13, '03 09:27:00AM

Contributed by: newkid

Creating new Mail messages without the blind carbon copy (BCC) field is annoying. The issue has been discussed here on MacOSXHints before. I had submitted this issue to Apple back in April, and I guess that we were not the only ones complaining about this because the next version of Mail will allow, via Preferences, to set the BCC field to display permanently. But that doesn't help today...

Meanwhile, I tried many many different approaches (like forcing all CC to be BCC or setting a default BCC to myself to force the field to show) but this is so far the best way:

  1. Create a new script called "Create new BCC message" and save it as an application:
    tell application "Mail"
      set newMessage to make new outgoing message
      tell newMessage
        set visible to true
        make new bcc recipient at end of bcc recipients
      end tell
      activate
    end tell
  2. Drag this script into your Home -> Library -> Scripts folder. If the Scripts folder does not exist, create a new folder and name it Scripts.

  3. Now drag the "Create New BCC Message" on the dock to create a link. You could also use a script menu and even set a custom icon for the dock.
Now, when you want to create a message, just click on the icon in the dock (or select the script from your script menu). If Mail is not open, it will start. Then a new message will appear with the BCC field visible and blank.

Comments (8)


Mac OS X Hints
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20030809041730354