Guide
How to stop spam emails in Gmail for good
Not every unwanted email is spam. Some come from real companies you once gave your address to, others from people who should never have had it. Each kind needs a different fix, and using the wrong one can make things worse. Here is how to tell them apart and stop both.
First, know which kind you are dealing with
- Unwanted newsletters: a real brand, a real unsubscribe link, usually something you signed up for or bought from. Unsubscribing works.
- True spam: unknown senders, odd addresses, offers that are too good, urgent warnings about accounts you do not have. Never click anything inside, including the unsubscribe link.
- Phishing: spam that imitates your bank, a delivery company or a service you use, to steal a password or card number. Report it and delete it.
For newsletters: unsubscribe properly
Open the email and look next to the sender name at the top: Gmail shows an Unsubscribe link for most legitimate mailing lists. It uses the official List-Unsubscribe header, so you do not have to visit the sender's website. Senders that email you in bulk are required by Gmail to honour these requests within two days.
If you have dozens of them, our guide on bulk unsubscribing in Gmail shows how to list them all in one search.
For spam: report it, then block it
- Report spam: select the email and click the Report spam icon (the exclamation mark). This moves it out of your inbox and teaches Gmail's filter what to catch next time.
- Block the sender: open the email, click the three dots, then Block. Future emails from that address go straight to Spam.
- Report phishing: for fake bank or delivery emails, use Report phishing in the same three dots menu instead.
Blocking works on one exact address. Spammers change addresses constantly, so reporting matters more than blocking.
For persistent senders: create a filter
When the same kind of email keeps arriving from different addresses, a filter catches the pattern. Click the filter icon in the search bar, enter a word they always use in Has the words or a domain in From, click Create filter and tick Delete it.
Find out how they got your address
A sudden wave of spam often follows a data breach. Check your address on haveibeenpwned.com, a free service run by a security researcher. If it appears in a breach, change the password of that service and of any account where you reused it. Our guide on what to do after a data breach email walks through the steps.
Every old account you no longer use is another place your address can leak from. Deleting them is the long-term fix.
Prevent it next time
- Sign up for shops and trials with an alias such as yourname+shop@gmail.com. It reaches the same inbox, and if spam arrives on that alias you know who leaked it.
- Untick "send me offers" boxes when you create accounts.
- Never reply to spam, even to say stop. A reply confirms your address is active.
See who has your address. HealthInbox lists every service tied to your Gmail account and flags the ones you have not used in years, so you know which accounts to close.
See how HealthInbox finds them