Why Should You Block Unwanted Emails?

According to Venngage, an average person receives about 121 emails in a day. That’s a lot of messages to sift through within a day. If you’re starting to struggle with email overload, it might be time to do some decluttering.

Unsubscribing from newsletters and setting email filters are a couple of ways to cut down the amount of emails you receive. However, let’s say you want to stop spam emails. In this case, it’s better to block the sender or domain specifically.

Spammers often send messages using several email addresses and subdomains, to the point where it would just be too much work to block them one by one. This is where knowing how to block a specific email address or domain can come in handy.

Blocking a Sender in Thunderbird

There is no built-in feature to block an email in Thunderbird from specific senders or domains. Instead, you can mark them as Junk or set filter rules in Thunderbird to automate your inbox management. These message filters can automatically sort messages into folders or delete them.

The message filters work per account. If you want to block email senders in Thunderbird, you need to set the filter to the address of the sender. After the email address has been set in the filter, you then have to set it to delete messages sent from that email sender.

Here’s how you can block an email address in Thunderbird:

Open Mozilla Thunderbird.
In your inbox, open a message from the sender you want to block.
Right-click on the sender’s address and click Create Filter From… in the menu that appears.

The Filter rules window will open and you’ll see the sender’s email address already included in the filter.
Create a suitable name for the filter.
Under the Perform these actions section of the window, click on the drop-down menu and change the action to Set Junk Status to and Junk. Then, click the plus icon and select Delete Message.
Uncheck the Manually Run checkbox so the rule will run automatically.
Click OK to save.

Setting this filter works essentially like making a “block list”.

💡 The filter can be opened and edited to add more email addresses if you want to block multiple, so there’s no need to make one filter for each account you want to block.

Block Unwanted Emails With Clean Email

Once the message filter is set up, you can sit back and relax. However, if you need advanced features, such as to block spam emails in Thunderbird, configuring the filter might take some work. Spammers often bombard inboxes from multiple addresses, so the usual solution is to block the entire domain.

With message filters, it could take a while to set it up to block an email domain in Thunderbird. If you want a simpler way to get rid of spam emails or block other unwanted emails, consider using the inbox organizer app Clean Email.

The Clean Email app comes with various tools and features you can use to block unwanted emails in Thunderbird and keep your inbox organized: the Senders page, Screener, Auto Clean, and Cleaning Suggestions.

Using the Senders page

On the Senders page, you’ll see a list of all senders who have sent you an email. Clean Email keeps a separate sender record for each unique combination of sender name and email address from the messages you receive.

You can block an email sender from the Senders page. Here’s how:

On your Clean Email home page, click Senders in the left-hand navigation menu.
Click on the sender you want to block from the list. This opens a window in the right-hand pane showing settings for that particular sender.
Click Block in the right-hand pane to block the sender.

A confirmation dialog will appear. Click Confirm to block the sender.

Automatically move the sender’s future messages to the Trash in Clean Email

Using Screener

When enabled, Screener intercepts all messages from new senders and keeps them separate from your inbox so you can review them. When you review a sender, you can choose to either accept the new sender’s message or block them.

When a sender is approved, Clean Email will deliver their future messages directly to your inbox.

Here’s how you can block a sender using Screener:

Click Screener in the left-hand navigation menu. Make sure that it’s enabled.

📌 If it’s disabled, toggle the switch at the top or click Enable Screener. Then, toggle the switch next to “I understand” to confirm your understanding of the feature. Click Continue and wait for incoming messages from new senders.

The Screener feature in Clean Email Mobile App

Review the list of new senders on the Screener page.
If you want to allow the new sender’s current and future messages, click Allow.
To block the new sender, click Block. This will move their new messages to Trash.

Stop spam emails with Screener feature in Clean Email

If you want to review the new sender’s message more thoroughly, you can preview their messages from the Screener page. Just click on the sender to open a preview of their message. You can use the Sender Settings dialog in the preview pane to click Block if you want to block the new sender, or click Deliver To… if you want to move the message elsewhere.

Block All Unknown Senders with Clean Email

Blocking a Domain with Auto Clean

Auto Clean is a feature that allows you to set filter rules so Clean Email can automatically block messages from a specific sender or domain. For example, you want to block an entire domain to deal with spam email.

Here’s how you can set up Auto Clean:

In the left-hand navigation menu, click Auto Clean.
Click ✚ at the top to make a new Auto Clean rule.
In the rule creation dialog, click Any sender or recipients.

Create Rule in the Clean Email Mobile App

From the drop-down menu, select Sender Domain.
Type in the domain you want to block. When a domain or subdomain is selected, it will appear with a blue background.
Click Choose action… and click Trash from the drop-down.
If you want to receive notifications when the rule is applied, enable Include this rule in Action History.
If you want Clean Email to trash all existing messages from the selected domain, toggle the Apply to existing messages option to enable it.
Click Create Rule.

Auto-Delete Emails in the Clean Email Mobile App

Organizing Your Inbox with Cleaning Suggestions

Clean Email can help you keep your inbox organized with its Cleaning Suggestions feature. The app keeps track of messages that are frequently deleted or archived. Based on its analysis of actions taken for the messages you receive, it can suggest actions to declutter your inbox tailored to your cleaning habits.

Cleaning Suggestions the smart feature of Clean Email

The Cleaning Suggestions section gives specific descriptions of the actions it suggests. If you want to accept a suggested action, click the corresponding button.

💡 Hint: You can also click the drop-down to view more options, such as moving a message to a folder, creating an Auto Clean rule, or keeping only the newest messages from that sender.

Delete Emails with Cleaning Suggestions in Clean Email

📌 The best part is that Clean Email allows you to effectively block senders and manage your inbox on any device, anywhere. It’s free to try, and users can enjoy all premium features during a 14-day free access period. The mobile app for Android and iOS provides the same level of convenience as the web and desktop (Mac) apps.

Wrap-up

Knowing how to block senders and domains can help declutter your inbox and get rid of unwanted emails. You can use message filters to block email addresses in Thunderbird or opt for Clean Email as a simpler solution to stop spammy senders and keep your inbox organized.

How To Block Emails In Mozilla Thunderbird Effectively