Spam filters are excellent at catching generic junk mail, but what if a persistent marketing company, an annoying political campaign, or a relentless recruiter keeps emailing you from different addresses? If they constantly switch between [email protected] and [email protected], blocking individual email addresses won’t solve the problem. Instead, you need to block their entire domain.
Step 1: Create a Custom Filter
Gmail doesn’t have a simple “Block Domain” button, but you can achieve the exact same result by creating an automated filter that sends the domain straight to the trash.
- Open Gmail in your web browser.
- Click the Show search options icon (it looks like three horizontal lines with sliders) located on the right side of the main search bar.
- In the From field, type an asterisk followed by the “@” symbol and the domain name you want to block. For example:
*@annoyingcompany.com - Leave all other fields blank.
- Click the Create filter button at the bottom of the search box.
Step 2: Choose the Action
Now that you have isolated the domain, you must tell Gmail what to do with those emails.
- You will see a list of checkboxes representing different actions.
- To completely block the domain, check the box next to Delete it. (Alternatively, if you just want to hide them but keep a record, you can check “Skip the Inbox” and “Apply the label: Junk”).
- To ensure you also delete any emails they have already sent you, check the box at the very bottom that says Also apply filter to matching conversations.
- Click the blue Create filter button.
Gmail will immediately purge the existing emails. Going forward, any message sent from any address ending in that specific domain will be silently deleted before it ever reaches your inbox.