It is often said that letter-writing is a lost art. Everyone has moved onto emails or instant messaging. This surely should mean that everyone knows how to write emails, but the evidence suggests not. Get it wrong—fail to include the right people, or get the tone wrong—and everyone will end up confused and quite possibly offended.

This page explains the etiquette of emails. It covers the basics, such as understanding the difference between ‘To’, ‘Cc’ and ‘Bcc’, and knowing when to use them, and the importance of a signature, and is designed to ensure that your emails do not offend or upset.

Our page on Writing Effective Emails explores making your emails more likely to be actioned.

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Addressing Your Email

When you send an email, the first issue is the recipients, and particularly whether to use ‘To’, ‘Cc’ or ‘Bcc’.

• ‘To’ is used for the main recipient, or anyone who needs to take action. Always use ‘To’ when you have just one recipient.

• ‘Cc’ is used for people who need to see the email, but do not need to take action as a result. It is commonly used when you need someone to know that you have sent the email. This might be your manager, or could be a group: for example, if you have agreed that you will send an email on behalf of a club or group, and you want the committee to know that you have done so, and what you said, then you would ‘cc’ them in.

• ‘Bcc’ is used for people who need to see the email, but where you do not need/want everyone to see who has received the email. It is also used where you have a responsibility to protect people’s privacy and not provide their email addresses to everyone, such as a group email list for a club or society. If all your recipients are ‘Bcc’, you will need to send the email ‘To’ yourself.

Any recipient can reply to you. Bcc recipients cannot reply to everyone else.

The Email Subject

We all receive too many emails to be able to manage with an inbox full of subject-less messages. The subject is the way that people filter emails and decide whether to read them now, later or not at all.

Use the email subject to explain (briefly) what your email is about.

Your subject line should provide a summary of the content of the email. It should tell people whether they need to read your email, and also whether they need to do so now, or if it can wait until later. Beware of general titles like ‘Meeting’, which can cause your email to end up in the Spam box. Instead, provide a meeting title, and preferably a date, in the subject line. Your recipients might also appreciate knowing whether this is you trying to set up a meeting, or if this is the papers for an existing meeting.

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‘Topping and Tailing’ Your Email

It is generally a good idea to start your email with a greeting, such as ‘Dear [Name]’, or ‘Hi [Name]’. ‘Dear’ is more formal, and is better if you do not already know the recipient.

Some people use just the name—and this was particularly common practice about 25 or 30 years ago, when email was first routinely used in organisations. However, since then, etiquette seems to have shifted towards using a greeting instead.

If you are addressing lots of people, you might use ‘Dear all’ or ‘Dear colleagues’, depending on the level of formality you want.

If you are responding to an email from someone else, it is also helpful to say something like ‘Thank you for your email about [subject]’ as this sets your reply in context. You may be replying immediately, but there is no guarantee that they will see your response straight away, and they may have sent and received 50 emails already that morning.

It is also nice—and therefore good for future relationships—to sign off with a greeting such as ‘Best wishes’ or ‘Kind regards’. This serves another purpose, too: it shows that you have finished the email, and that the recipient has received all the content.

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The Content of Your Email

As a general rule, it is a good idea to keep emails short—no more than two or three brief paragraphs. It is also good to keep your sentences short and simple.

This reflects the fact that many—if not most—people read emails on mobile nowadays.

If you try to provide more information, people probably won’t read it, or will miss key points. If you need to include more information, consider doing so as an attachment.

This is particularly important with large amounts of text that not everyone needs to read.

Explain the content in the body of the email, so that recipients can decide whether to read or not.

DO NOT use attachments for short notes or letters that could easily be placed in the body of the email.

Of course you can attach other files to emails - not just text-based files like Word documents. Common attachment types include pictures, spreadsheets and PDF files. Be aware that some file types may be blocked by the email client or security software, and many organisations block all but a few file types. Generally people are wary of attachments as they are sometimes used to spread malicious software and viruses.

Tone and Language

Emails do not have the advantage of body language, facial expression or tone of voice to help recipients to interpret them. Words therefore tend to be taken at face value.

Getting the tone and language right is essential to avoid offending people.

DO NOT make jokes or try to use sarcasm in emails, especially business or official ones. Using emojis is generally not encouraged under these circumstances, and you could easily offend.

Avoid any kind of textspeak or abbreviations in emails, unless you are emailing a friend—and even then, be careful. If your communication is about work, keep it professional.

It is also a good idea to avoid using excessive amounts of punctuation, especially multiple exclamation marks. You may think it makes your email look more fun but, like emojis, it just looks unprofessional. Get your punctuation right (and our page on Punctuation may help), but not over the top. As a rough rule of thumb, use no more than one exclamation mark in any given email.

Experts also suggest that you should avoid being too self-deprecating, especially if you want to come across as professional. Phrases to avoid include:

• ‘Just’ anything. ‘Just checking’, ‘just wondering’ and ‘just a quick email’ should be banished. Instead, be more direct: ‘You didn’t say when you might respond, please let me know.’

• ‘Sorry to bother you, but...’. If it is worth your time emailing, then don’t apologise for it.

• ‘Does this make sense?’. You might think it sounds polite, but it can suggest that you lack confidence in your ability to communicate.

What’s more, these phrases are all ‘fillers’—and when you are trying to keep emails short, this matters.

The Email Signature

It is good practice—and generally polite—to ensure that you sign off emails with enough details for your recipient to be able to recognise you and respond.

• On a personal email, your first name is likely to be enough. You may need more if your first name is common, and/or your email address is cryptic.

• On a business email—which includes anything official, such as communications with a school, college or university, or to a doctor or other health service provider, as well as paid work—you should include your full name. You should also consider whether more information is necessary, such as your job title and/or contact details.

Many devices will add an email ‘signature’ to the bottom of any email. Examples include ‘Sent from my iPhone’, or ‘Sent from Windows Mail’. You can remove or customise this, adding more information if you wish.

Organisations often add an email signature from the organisation itself too. You may want to check whether your organisation does this and set one up for yourself if not. Although it is possible to create long email signatures it is good practice to keep them as concise as possible.

Handling Emails

It is also worth touching on the etiquette of responding to emails.

First, you should always respond if you are the only or a main recipient—which means anyone in the ‘To’ line. You might only need to briefly acknowledge that you have received the information, but it is polite to do so. If you don’t want to deal with the email now, send a holding response to let the sender know when you will respond more fully.

You don’t need to reply if you have only been cc’d unless you want to do so. If you have been cc’d, then it is not necessary to acknowledge that you have seen the email.

If you have been bcc’d but the email asks you to take action, then you need to reply.

What if you’ve been sent the email by accident? In that case, it is polite to reply and let the sender know that it has not reached the intended recipient. Obviously you don’t have to reply to spam or phishing emails, and it is usually better not to do so.

Before You Send

One final word of warning: always check the recipients again before you press ‘send’.

Autocomplete being what it is, you may well be sending something to the wrong ‘John’ or ‘Jane’. It might not be a problem—but you really don’t want to risk sending commercially sensitive information to the wrong person.

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The Bottom Line

A bit of time and trouble to get the tone and etiquette right in your emails will help you to appear more professional and also avoid offending others. It is well worth the bother.

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