# How to Manage Email Reply Recipients?

In email dialogs, you can see all recipients of every message (the **To** and **CC** fields) and control who exactly receives your reply. By default the system prepares the reply in **reply-all** mode — the customer in **To** and all prior **CC** recipients in **CC** — and you can remove anyone you don't want before sending.

## When You'll Need This

- The customer's message arrived with several addresses in **To** or **CC**.
- You need to verify exactly who will receive your reply before clicking Send.
- You need to remove an unwanted participant from the reply (for example, a generic company mailbox).
- You need to understand why some addresses don't appear in the reply fields (for example, the channel mailbox itself).

## What's Important to Know

- **To** — the primary recipient of the message, usually the customer.
- **CC** — additional recipients who see the conversation but aren't the primary addressee.
- **Reply-all by default** — the system automatically forms recipients so all prior participants continue to see the thread.
- **Recipients preview** — a compact line above the input field showing who will receive the reply.
- Addresses of the channel's own mailbox (your bot's email account) are **automatically excluded** from To and CC, so you don't email yourself.
- You **cannot add new addresses** to CC or BCC from the operator interface — only remove existing ones.

## Before You Start

- [x] You are logged in with operator rights.
- [x] An email dialog with a message you want to reply to is open.

## Step-by-Step Instructions

### 1. View recipients of an inbound message

1. Pick an email message in the dialog timeline.
2. Above the message body you'll see the **To** field and (if present) **CC (N)**, where **N** is the number of addresses in CC.
3. Click **CC (N)** to expand the full list of addressees. Click again to collapse.

### 2. View the recipients preview before sending

1. Click **Reply** on the message you want to reply to (or just start typing in the input field — the system picks the customer's last inbound message as the target).
2. Above the input field a row appears with recipients: **To: …** and (if present) **CC (N)**.
3. If needed, click **CC (N)** to expand the list.

### 3. Remove an unwanted recipient from CC

1. In the expanded **CC** list, click the cross next to the address you want to remove.
2. The address disappears from the preview — this specific reply will go without it.
3. The change applies **only to this reply**. Subsequent messages are again formed with the full CC list from the corresponding inbound message.

### 4. Send the reply

1. Verify the **To** field and the **CC** list — make sure the reply is going to the right people.
2. Type the reply text in the input field.
3. Click **Send** or press **Enter**.

### 5. Forward a message or send attachments only (no body text)

On the **email channel**, the message field is **optional** when:

- you **forward** a message (Forward mode) — the system appends the original letter and attachments; an extra comment is not required;
- or you send **attachments only** (files already added), with an empty input field.

If you click **Send** with an empty field **without** forward context and **without** files — you get a **warning**, not silence (the button no longer ignores the click quietly).

1. For forwarding, choose **Forward** and set recipients outside the current participant set.
2. Add files if needed; you may leave the text empty.
3. Click **Send**.

## What Happens Next

- The message is sent with the recipients you saw in the preview.
- Your channel's mailbox address doesn't end up in To/CC, even if it was in the inbound message's CC.
- Duplicates between To and CC are removed automatically (a single address cannot be in both fields at once).
- If you click **Reply** on a different message in the thread, the To and CC fields update to match that message.

## How to Verify Everything Worked

- Check that your outbound message in the timeline shows the expected list of recipients (To / CC).
- If the customer responds — the new message appears in the same dialog.
- Participants you removed from CC don't see your reply in their inboxes.

## Other Ways

- **Reply to a specific message** — if the thread has several messages and you want to reply not to the last one, click "Reply" on the message you need. The To and CC fields are formed from that message.
- **Forward** — to forward the conversation to a person outside the current participants. Use this when you need to bring in a new address, since adding to CC within the current reply isn't supported. Body text for Forward is **optional**.
- **Attachments only** — on email you can send files without body text; an empty message without files and without Forward shows a warning.

## Why Some Addresses Are Automatically Excluded

The system removes from your reply's To and CC any addresses that belong to the **connected email channel** (the mailbox you're replying from and its aliases). This protects against:

- Sending a message to yourself (mail loops).
- Spurious creation of a duplicate dialog through the same mailbox.

This is the default behaviour and cannot be disabled at the operator level. If a channel address really should be in CC — that's a question of the channel configuration by an administrator.

## Related Materials

- [How to reply to a client](/en/operatorline/how-to/reply-to-client.md) — general instruction on replying in chat.
- [Email view modes in conversations](/en/operatorline/explanation/email-view-modes.md) — how the view mode affects which message becomes the reply target.
- [Download attachments](/en/operatorline/how-to/download-attachments.md) — working with files in messages.
- [Configure skill groups](/en/settings/how-to/configure-skill-groups.md) — if a needed “From” address is missing, a supervisor can add it to the skill group (default sender or allowed sender list).