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How to block an email address in Gmail

Blocking a sender in Gmail sends everything they email you from now on straight to Spam, where it is deleted automatically after 30 days. It works on a single address, and it doesn't tell the sender anything. This guide covers the desktop browser version, with the mobile app under Variations.

What you'll need: A Gmail account, and at least one email from the person you want to block sitting somewhere in your mailbox.

Open Gmail in your browser

Go to mail.google.com and sign in if you aren't already.

Open an email from the sender

Find any message from the address you want to block and click it to open it. If it's already in Spam, click Spam in the left-hand sidebar first (you may need to click More to see it).

Open the message's More menu

At the top right of the message, next to the Reply arrow, click the three vertical dots (⋮).

There are two sets of three dots on the page. You want the one level with the sender's name on the message itself, not the one in the grey toolbar above the message.

Choose Block

In the menu that drops down, click Block "Sender name". Gmail fills in the sender's display name for you.

Confirm

A small box appears explaining that future messages from this address will be marked as spam. Click Block.

The message you have open stays where it is. From the next email onwards, anything from that address lands in Spam instead of your inbox.

Variations

Block a sender from the Gmail app on your phone

Open the email in the Gmail app on Android or iPhone. Tap the three dots (⋮) at the top right of the message, level with the sender's name, then tap Block "Sender name". The block applies to your whole account, so the same sender is blocked on your computer too.

Block everyone at a company or domain

Block only works on one exact address at a time. To stop everything from, say, @example.com, create a filter instead: put the domain in the From field and tick Delete it as the action. The steps are in our Gmail filter guide, with a domain example under Variations.

Unblock someone

Click the gear icon (⚙️) at the top right, then See all settings, then the Filters and Blocked Addresses tab. Scroll past your filters to the list of blocked addresses and click unblock next to the one you want to let through again.

If you have one of their emails open, the same three-dot menu from step 3 now shows Unblock "Sender name", which does the same thing.

Troubleshooting

I'm still getting emails from them

Open one of the new emails and check the actual address, not the display name. Marketing senders often rotate between several addresses, and a block only covers the one you chose. Block the new address the same way, or switch to a domain filter as described above.

Also check whether the emails are arriving in Spam rather than your inbox. That is the block working as designed: Gmail doesn't delete blocked messages, it moves them to Spam.

There's no Block option in the menu

You have probably opened the three dots in the toolbar above the message rather than the ones on the message itself. Close that menu and look for the dots level with the sender's name, to the right of the Reply arrow.

Block also doesn't appear on emails you sent yourself, or on messages in a Google Chat conversation. For a chat, block the person from within Chat instead.

I want their emails deleted, not sitting in Spam

Blocking always uses Spam. If you'd rather never see the messages at all, unblock the address and create a filter with their address in the From field and Delete it as the action. Deleted messages go to Bin and are removed after 30 days, so you still have a short window to recover one if you need to.

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