Mar 29, 2026

How to Block Emails in Gmail

Gmail Block Emails Spam How-to Email Inbox Management

Gmail lets you block specific senders so their emails go straight to your Spam folder. You can also report spam, report phishing, mute noisy threads, and block entire domains using filters. Here’s how to do each one on desktop and mobile.

1. Block a Sender on Desktop

Open Gmail on your computer.
Open an email from the sender you want to block.
Click the three-dot menu (More) next to the Reply button at the top right of the message.
Select Block “[Sender’s Name]”.
A confirmation dialog appears. Click Block.

Future emails from that address go directly to your Spam folder. You’ll see a yellow banner at the top of the message confirming the sender has been blocked, with an option to Unblock if you change your mind.

You do not need to open the email first — you can also right-click the sender’s name in the message list and select Block “[Sender’s Name]” from the context menu.

2. Block a Sender on Mobile (iOS & Android)

The steps are the same on both platforms.

Open the Gmail app.
Open the email from the sender you want to block.
Tap the three-dot menu in the top right corner of the screen.
Tap Block “[Sender’s Name]”.

There is no confirmation step on mobile — the block takes effect immediately. A banner appears at the top of the message confirming the sender is blocked.

3. What Happens When You Block Someone

When you block a sender in Gmail:

Future emails from that address are automatically sent to your Spam folder.
Existing emails from the sender stay where they are — blocking is not retroactive.
The blocked sender is not notified that you blocked them.
Blocked emails in Spam are automatically deleted after 30 days, following Gmail’s standard Spam behavior.
If the same person emails you from a different address, those emails will still arrive normally. Blocking is per email address, not per person.

Blocking does not prevent you from sending emails to the blocked address. You can still compose and send messages to them.

4. Unblock a Sender

From an email (desktop or mobile):

Open any email from the blocked sender (check your Spam folder).
Click or tap the three-dot menu.
Select Unblock “[Sender’s Name]”.

From Settings (desktop only):

Click the gear icon and select See all settings.
Go to the Filters and Blocked Addresses tab.
Scroll to find the block entry for the sender.
Click Unblock next to their address.

After unblocking, new emails from that sender will arrive in your inbox normally. Any messages already in Spam stay there until you move them manually or they’re auto-deleted.

5. Report Spam

Reporting spam is different from blocking. Blocking stops one sender from reaching your inbox. Reporting spam also tells Google that the message is unwanted, which helps improve spam filtering for all Gmail users.

Desktop:

Select the email (or open it).
Click the Report spam button in the toolbar (the exclamation mark icon inside a stop sign).
The email moves to your Spam folder.

Mobile:

Open the email.
Tap the three-dot menu.
Tap Report spam.

You can report spam and block the sender separately — they are independent actions. Reporting spam does not automatically block the sender, and blocking does not report the email as spam.

To unmark a message as spam: Open the Spam folder, select the message, and click Not spam. The message moves back to your inbox.

6. Report Phishing

Phishing emails try to trick you into giving up passwords, credit card numbers, or other sensitive information. Reporting phishing is more aggressive than reporting spam — it sends the full email to Google for investigation.

Desktop:

Open the suspicious email (do not click any links in it).
Click the three-dot menu next to Reply.
Select Report phishing.
Click Report Phishing Message to confirm.

Mobile:

Open the suspicious email.
Tap the three-dot menu.
Tap Report phishing.

The email is moved to Spam. Google uses these reports to update their phishing detection systems.

7. Mute a Conversation Thread

Muting is useful when you’re on a group email thread that keeps generating replies you don’t care about. Unlike blocking (which targets a sender), muting targets a specific conversation.

Desktop:

Open the conversation thread.
Click the three-dot menu in the toolbar above the message.
Select Mute.

Mobile:

Open the conversation thread.
Tap the three-dot menu.
Tap Mute.

What muting does:

New replies to the muted thread skip your inbox and go directly to All Mail (with the “Muted” label).
The conversation is not deleted — you can find it by searching or browsing All Mail.
You are not removed from the conversation. People can still see you on the thread.
If someone adds you to the To or Cc field directly (not just replying to the thread), the mute is overridden and the message appears in your inbox.

To unmute: Search for is:muted in Gmail, open the conversation, and click the three-dot menu > Unmute.

8. Block an Entire Domain

Gmail does not have a one-click “block domain” button. To block all email from an entire domain (e.g., every address at example.com), you need to create a filter.

Click the search bar at the top of Gmail.
Click the Show search options icon (sliders on the right side of the search bar).
In the From field, type @example.com (replace with the domain you want to block).
Click Create filter.
Check Delete it (sends matching emails to Trash) or check Skip the Inbox and Mark as read (archives them silently).
Optionally check Also apply filter to matching conversations to retroactively handle existing emails from that domain.
Click Create filter.

This blocks every current and future email address at that domain. To remove the block later, go to Settings > Filters and Blocked Addresses and delete the filter.

For more on filters, see How to create filters in Gmail.

Quick Reference

Action	Desktop	Mobile
Block a sender	Three-dot menu > Block “[Sender]“	Three-dot menu > Block “[Sender]“
Unblock a sender	Three-dot menu > Unblock or Settings > Filters and Blocked Addresses	Three-dot menu > Unblock
Report spam	Report spam button (toolbar)	Three-dot menu > Report spam
Report phishing	Three-dot menu > Report phishing	Three-dot menu > Report phishing
Mute a thread	Three-dot menu > Mute	Three-dot menu > Mute
Block a domain	Create a filter with `@domain.com` in From	Not available (use desktop)
Find muted threads	Search `is:muted`	Search `is:muted`

Blocking and spam reporting clean up your inbox, but managing everything else — scheduling, follow-ups, triage — takes more than blocking alone. Carly is an AI assistant that handles inbox management, scheduling, and connects to 200+ apps so you can focus on the messages that actually need your attention.

More on Gmail: How to create filters in Gmail · How to create labels in Gmail · How to archive emails in Gmail · How to unsend an email in Gmail · How to create folders in Gmail