How To Permanently Stop Spam Emails on Gmail

You can protect yourself from unwanted email in your Gmail inbox, such as spam, mailbombs, or messages from an account that has abused Gmail’s policies.

Mark or unmark email as spam

For email you received that you consider spam, mark it as such. You can also unmark it.

To prevent a message from being sent to spam, you can:

• Add the sender to your contacts.
• Filter these messages.

Note: If legitimate email is still being sent to spam after you’ve added the sender as a contact and set up a filter, make sure the sender is following our sender guidelines.

If you receive spam from one of your contacts

If someone on your contacts list sends you spam, a hacker might have taken over their account.

1. Don’t respond to the email.
2. To report the email, in the spam alert, click Message looks suspicious.
   This action sends a report to the Gmail team to investigate. You continue to get email from this contact in the future.
3. Let your contact know by another means (for example, phone or instant message) that their email account might be hacked.

Block email from unwanted senders

When you block a sender, their messages will go to your Spam folder.

1. On your computer, go to Gmail.
2. Open the message.
3. In the top right, click More .
4. Click Block [sender].

Tip: If you blocked someone by mistake, you can unblock them using the same steps.

Manage Gmail abuse

Stop a Gmail account from impersonating an individual or organization

If you suspect that you received a message from a Gmail account that is impersonating an individual or organization, go to This message may not have been sent by…

To learn about Google’s policies for acceptable use of Gmail and what to do if another Gmail account violated any of these policies, go to Gmail Program Policies.

Report abuse of any Google service

For instructions on reporting the abuse of Google services that might send emails to you, go to Report a violation.

Protect your account from mailbombing

A mailbomb is a form of attack designed to prevent you from using your email account or finding legitimate emails.

With Gmail, you can take steps to stop or prevent your account from being mailbombed. To perform a mailbox attack, an attacker only needs to know your email address. The following information helps you defend against being mailbombed.

Gmail warns you if someone mailbombs your account

If Gmail detects that your account was mailbombed, you receive a warning with a link to our existing mailbomb article.

What this warning means

You might have received a lot of unwanted email, such as subscriptions or promotional offers. In a targeted attack, a hacker can try to fill up your inbox so that you can’t find important security alerts from websites or services you signed up for with your Gmail account.

For example, if a hacker tries to get into your bank account, your bank can notify you by email. But if your inbox is full of junk mail, you might miss the bank’s alert.