How to Block Emails on Your iPhone and iPad

How To Block Emails In The Mail App On iPhone

Since the release of iOS 13, it has been possible to use the Mail app to prevent mail from unwanted senders. When you block a sender from the Mail app, the message is still delivered to your inbox, but you won’t receive an alert when the message arrives.

Here’s how to block someone on email on iPhone using the Mail app on iOS 16:

1. Open the Mail app and find a message from the address you want to block.
2. Tap the sender’s picture.
3. Tap the sender’s name (found in the From field).
4. Tap Block this Contact.
5. Confirm the block.

If you want to move these messages to your Trash folder, you’ll need to change the Mail app settings. Here’s how to block emails on iPhone so that messages aren’t delivered to your inbox:

1. Open Settings on your iPhone.
2. Tap Mail.
3. Tap Block Sender Options.
4. Tap Move to Bin.

To unblock a sender on iPhone, open Settings, tap Mail, and then tap Blocked. When you find the address you want to unblock, swipe left and tap Unblock.

Finding out how to block an email on iPhone for iOS 12 and lower isn’t as intuitive. Instead of blocking the address, mark those messages as junk. Then, unwanted messages will be moved to the junk folder automatically.

How Clean Email Can Help with This Task

Clean Email is an email organizer that can automatically block unwanted emails and apply other actions to emails. It supports Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, iCloud, and other major services with IMAP, providing the easiest way to achieve Inbox Zero.

To block an email address in Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook, and other services using Clean Email, all you have to do is take advantage of the app’s powerful automation features. The app will make sure that no messages from the selected sender can reach your inbox without being dealt with.

Here’s how to quickly block any sender using the app:

1. Launch the app and go to Senders from the left-side panel. Select the sender you'd like to stop messages from.
2. Choose the Block action under Sender Settings.
3. Turn the toggle on if you’d like to move all existing messages from this sender to Trash. Click Confirm and you’re done!

If you want to block messages from a specified domain, follow these steps:

1. Launch the Clean Email app and click the Auto Clean tool from the left-side panel. Then click the Create Rule button.
2. Give a name to the rule and click Any sender or recipients.
3. In the drop-down list, choose Sender Domain. Under the Sender Domain, start typing the domain in the search box and choose the domain you’d like to be blocked.
4. Choose the action you’d like to apply to the messages from this domain, e.g. send them to Archive or Trash. Press Create Rule. Now, all messages from this domain will be sent to Trash right after they reach your inbox.

Thanks to its iOS app, Clean Email presents an excellent way to block unwanted emails on iPhone and iPad. You can download the app for free and use it to clean up to 1,000 emails—more than enough to discover what makes it so great. The app will also unsubscribe you from 50 newsletters for free and run Auto Clean rules within the 14-day trial.

You may also find it convenient to use your email service provider’s email client when you’re using that app for other reasons. Depending on the email client you use, you’ll follow different instructions on blocking email on your iPhone. We provided a quick tutorial on how to block unwanted emails on iPhone for the popular providers below. Or, learn more about how to block emails on Android or how to delete all emails on iPhone in our other posts.

How to block emails on iPhone in Gmail app

In the case of Gmail, the most popular email service among Apple users, the process is quite simple. Here’s how to block someone on Gmail on iPhone:

1. Open an email from the sender you’d like to be blocked.
2. Select More (the three vertical dots next on the right from the Reply button) and choose Block "sender's name" from the drop-down menu.
3. You can always choose to Unblock sender in the warning dialog box if you’ve selected the wrong message.

Alternatively, you can also mark a message as spam, which is the easiest method for how to block an email address on iPhone.

1. Open the Gmail mobile app on your iPhone.
2. There should be a profile image next to the message you want to mark as spam. Tap on it.
3. Tap More and then tap Report spam (located in the upper-right corner).

After clicking the Report spam button, the message you reported will be sent to Google for analysis to help it protect its users from spam and abuse.

How to block unwanted emails on Outlook

The Outlook mobile app doesn’t have an option that shows you how to block an email on iPhone, which is why you need to visit Outlook.com and do everything there:

1. Go to your Inbox and select a message from the unwelcome sender.
2. On the top toolbar, select Junk. Then choose Block.
3. Click OK to confirm your action.

You have an email address that you would like to block, but you have to receive a message from this address. Alternatively, you can block the sender directly by opening your Junk email settings and entering it under Blocked senders or Blocked domains. The number of mail addresses you can block is limited to 1,024, which should be more than enough for most users to stop junk in Outlook.

Block email on iPhone in Yahoo mobile app

Yahoo has become overshadowed by Google, but its iOS email app is among the most popular apps in the productivity category, and its fantastic rating speaks volumes about its quality. Yahoo users seldom delete emails because they get 1,000 GB of cloud storage for free, but even they don’t like to read spam emails from senders with bad intentions.

Yahoo explains how to block email on iPhone on its help page, but here’s a concise summary for your convenience.

You can’t block email in Yahoo mobile app; however, you can mark it as spam. Here is how:

1. Go to your Inbox and press the empty checkbox near the message or messages you’d like to stop.
2. Click More on the actions bar at the bottom panel. Choose Mark as spam option.
3. Once done, messages from this sender will go to the Spam folder automatically.

Learn more about blocking emails on Yahoo in our post.

Block unwanted emails on iCloud Mail

Even though it’s technically possible to block a sender straight from iPhone’s Mail app (the instructions were given at the beginning of this article), we encourage you to instead log in to your iCloud mail account and block iCloud emails from there by following a couple of simple steps:

1. Open your iCloud Mail account on your computer.
2. Go to Settings.
3. Choose Rules and click Add a Rule in the Rules window.
4. Select If a message and choose is from.
5. Enter the mail address of the person you want to be blocked. Select Then and choose Move to Trash.
6. Any future emails coming from the address you added will be automatically moved to the Trash folder, which means they won’t bother you at all.

Block an email on iPhone in AOL Mail app

AOL doesn’t have a dedicated email app for iOS. Instead, AOL Mail users can access their inboxes from the AOL app, which also provides access to trending news, weather information, and important alerts.

1. Open the AOL app on your iPhone.
2. Tap the New emails icon to access your inbox.
3. Mark the empty checkbox near the message you’d like to stop. Click More at the bottom panel.
4. Choose the Mark as spam option.

You can also move the message to the Spam folder, which has the same effect as marking it as spam. Follow our detailed guide on how to block an email address on AOL.

How to block emails on iPhone in ProtonMail

The ProtonMail app for iOS was built from the ground up to provide convenient access to all features found in ProtonMail’s web app, including email blocking. While ProtonMail uses a smart spam detection system that automatically filters messages to your Spam folder, the service provider acknowledges that the system makes a mistake from time to time and allows users to block unwanted emails manually.

1. Open the ProtonMail app on your iPhone.
2. Find the message you want to block.
3. Swipe left on it and select the Spam option to block it.

When you mark a message as spam in ProtonMail, it gets added to the Blacklist, which you can manage from the Filters page in Settings. To unblock a blocked sender, all you need to do is remove it from the Blacklist.

How to block an email on Zoho Mail

Zoho Mail offers a native iOS app that lets you easily access your messages, Zoho Calendar, and Zoho Contacts. One great thing about the app is that it doesn’t interfere with your device’s calendars and contacts, allowing you to separate your personal contact list and calendar from your work contact list and calendar.

If you receive an unwanted message on your iPhone, there’s no need to go to your computer just to delete it.

1. Open the Zoho Mail app on your iPhone.
2. Select the unwanted message.
3. Swipe left on it to reveal additional options.
4. Select the Move option and move the message to the Spam folder.

Block emails on Mail.com

Mail.com’s iOS has been around for a long time, allowing Mail.com users to enjoy the same email experience they’re used to from their computers on the go. With the latest version of Mail.com, users can activate push notifications, increase security through PIN protection, customize the user interface, take advantage of powerful organizational tools, and block junk email addresses with a few clicks.

1. Open the Mail.com app on your iPhone.
2. Select any message sent from the sender you want to block.
3. Tap the three dots in the lower-right corner and select Spam.

How to Block Emails on iPad

If you’re now wondering how to block unwanted emails on iPad, we have good news for you: the instructions on how to block email on iPhone also apply to iPad.

Yes, it’s true that iPad apps sometimes have more features than their iPhone counterparts, but it’s still more convenient to block unwanted emails on the computer. There’s only one exception to this, and it’s Clean Email, a smart email organizer that works just as great on mobile devices as it does on desktop computers.

How to Unsubscribe From Emails on iPhone

An alternative to blocking messages is to unsubscribe from those mailing lists. When you block an email address, you’ll still receive messages from that address. However, those messages aren’t delivered to your main inbox. Instead, those messages are filed away in a junk or trash folder.

If you’re looking for a permanent way to stop receiving unwanted mail, it may be possible to unsubscribe from mailings from the unwanted address. When you unsubscribe from those messages, your name and address are removed from the mailing list, and the sender shouldn’t send you any messages again. That is, unless you subscribe to the mailing list again.

Any messages you receive from a mailing list should have an unsubscribe link, probably toward the top of the message. When you click that link, you’re taken to a web page where you can ask to have your address removed from the list.

There is an easier option to unsubscribe from all unwanted emails on iPhone from one place using the Clean Email app. Just launch the app and choose Unsubscriber from the left-side panel. Then choose the unwanted subscriptions and select Unsubscribe. The app will do all the required actions on your behalf.

Conclusion

There are several ways how to block an email address on an iPad or iPhone. However, Clean Email is the only one that doesn’t require a lengthy explanation and supports Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, iCloud, and other IMAP service providers. Apart from blocking unwanted emails, the app is designed to take care of all other aspects of email management, helping you keep your inboxes clean and be more productive. Best of all, Clean Email is free to try, so everyone can give it a go to see how it works.