How To Block Somebody In Gmail Online Or On Your Phone

Everybody eventually encounters somebody that they’d like to block emails from, whether in Gmail or some other service. Whether that’s because the emails have become annoying, abusive, or are just cluttering up the inbox, it can be a real pain trying to work out how to get that done.

Fortunately, Google does make it fairly easy to accomplish in Gmail if you know where to look. Since most users are likely to have a Gmail address — given the global prominence of Android, and how good it is— we’re breaking down how to accomplish that in that service here. So if that’s what you’re looking to do, read on.

Here’s how to block somebody in Gmail on the web

Now, you can block somebody in Gmail both in the app and the web. But we’re going to start with the latter method, addressing how you can block somebody online, using the web version of the email app. And it’s a fairly easy process, as are so many of our how-to guides, albeit not the most intuitive one.

1. Open the Gmail app on your Android or iOS smartphone
2. Navigate to the ‘somebody’ that you’d like to block in Gmail. This example shows a newsletter/offer from “Readly” being blocked — with Readly being an online service for reading or subscribing to digital magazines and newspapers that I’ve recently decided not to use any longer
3. Select the email to open it up
4. Select the three-dot overflow menu icon located just to the right of the sender’s email and details
5. From the resulting menu, select the “Block” option, typically shown with the sender’s presented name after the word “Block”
6. Gmail will confirm that future emails from the sender will be marked as Spam — although previously-received emails will not
7. Confirm your choice to block the sender
8. After blocking a sender, you won’t or shouldn’t receive any more emails from that sender outside of the Spam folder. Or, for that matter, messages on any other Google platforms, such as chat. However, the emails you’ve already received will remain visible. To Unblock the sender, simply navigate to any email you’ve received from that sender. Then you’ll have two options, you can either tap the same three-dot menu as before and then select “Unblock” or you can tap the “Unblock sender” button Gmail provides within the email frame itself, as shown in our sample images below
9. Conversely, you can also report the sender to Google as spam or a phishing attempt by tapping the appropriate button within the three-dot menu. Or send the current email to spam via the appropriate button found within the content itself, as shown in our sample images

…or on your smartphone, in the app

Of course, most users are likely initiating or engaging in Gmail communications in the mobile app rather than online. So this segment of the guide will walk you through how to block somebody in Gmail in the phone app, rather than online.

As might be expected, the process is fairly straightforward if not the easiest, given the density of overflow menus in Gmail.

1. Open the Gmail app on your Android or iOS smartphone
2. Navigate to the ‘somebody’ that you’d like to block in Gmail. In the sample images, this example is also blocking “Readly” — just as the example above
3. Select an email from the user, or service you’d like to block, as shown in our sample images
4. Now, within the email itself, there will be two three-dot overflow menu options. The one near the top of the page pertains to the email itself, rather than its sender. So you’ll want to select, as shown in our sample images, the lower one. That’s specifically the three-dot menu located next to the provided name of the email’s sender
5. Within the three-dot menu, select the “Block” option. That will read “Block” followed by the name provided by the sender
6. After blocking a sender, you won’t or shouldn’t receive any more emails from that sender. Or messages on any other Google platforms, such as chat. However, the emails you’ve already received will remain visible. To Unblock the sender, simply navigate to any email you’ve received from that sender. Then you’ll have two options, you can either tap the same three-dot menu as before and then select “Unblock” or you can tap the “Unblock sender” button Gmail provides within the email frame itself, as shown in our sample images below
7. Conversely, you can also report the sender to Google as spam by tapping the appropriate button within the email content itself