Blocking Unknown Email Addresses on Gmail

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Unwanted email messages from unknown senders and spam can quickly clutter up your Gmail inbox and cause you to overlook important messages. This is annoying and can result in stress, low productivity, wasted time and increased costs. Gmail does not directly support blocking email from particular senders. However, you can filter email from unknown addresses using Gmail’s filter function with the email address as the filter criterion. This will send the email directly to trash, so you won't see it.

Launch a Web browser and navigate to the Gmail website. Log in with your username and password.

Locate an email from an unknown sender that you wish to block in your inbox. You may need to scroll through your inbox pages or look in your spam folder for a suitable email address.

Click on the check box next to the email from the unknown sender. You do not need to read or open the email. Do not open any attachments in the email because they may harm your computer. Clicking on the check box identifies the email address for creating the filter.

Click on the gray “More” button at the top of the Gmail page. This will display a drop-down menu with a list of options relevant to the message you selected.

Choose the “Filter Messages Like These” option. The filter will launch with the email address already populated in the From text box.

Click on the “Create Filter With This Search” link at the bottom of the box.

Select the “Delete It” option and click the blue “Save Filter” button at the bottom of the form. All future messages from this sender will be deleted and sent to the Gmail trash rather than your inbox.