How to see blocked emails on Gmail (and unblock senders)

Want to know how to unblock email on Gmail? Maybe it was an accident, or maybe it’s an ex. Whatever your reason — and we’ve all got them — once you know how, it's quite easy to review your blocked addresses and unblock them too.

For some reason, the settings are in a bit of a weird place, but I’ll show you how to find them and what happens after you unblock someone. Spoiler alert: their old blocked messages don't come back. Plus, how to prevent accidental blocks on your iPhone.

How to find the Gmail blocked list

Once you’re logged into your Gmail account, go to your Settings (gear icon ) > See all settings > Filters and Blocked Addresses tab.

Or here’s a direct URL that’ll take you straight there: mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#settings/filters

Every address you've ever blocked from Gmail (or marked as spam via "Block") is going to show up here.

Interestingly, this list is desktop-only in the UI. The Gmail app doesn't expose it directly, but I’ll cover that a bit later on in the article.

How to unblock someone on Gmail (desktop)

Unblocking email addresses in Gmail is really easy. You need to go to the list using the steps above, or a quick reminder:

1. Click on the gear icon > See all settings > Filters and Blocked Addresses tab.

2. Go down to The following email addresses are blocked section.

3. Then you can select them one by one, or select all and click Unblock.

4. You’ll then need to confirm in the unblock in the pop-up.

And that’s it; it’s instant, and you don’t need to refresh or log out.

How to unblock email on Gmail on an iPhone or Android

Annoyingly, the Gmail mobile app doesn't have a Blocked Addresses screen. One of those little quirks, but there are a couple of workarounds.

Workaround 1

In my opinion, this is your best option. You need to sign in to Gmail in Safari or Chrome on your mobile: mail.google.com > make sure you select the desktop site (on an iPhone this is usually labeled Request Desktop Website), then you can simply follow all the steps above.

Workaround 2

This is another option for you, but I’d say it’s a bit more fiddly. You’ll need to find any old email from the blocked sender in your Spam folder > open it > tap the three-dot menu > click Unblock sender.

Good to know, any messages that have been sent during the period they were blocked won’t go back into your inbox.

On Android, if you can't find an old email, you’ll have to stick to the first workaround.

How to view blocked senders in Gmail and some other tips

So now you know how to see blocked emails on Gmail; it’s as simple as going to your All Settings location and finding the Filters and Blocked Addresses tab.

A couple of useful things to note on blocked emails and senders. Gmail doesn't limit this list, so you can block away. Some users have hundreds after years of spam-fighting.

There’s no built-in export for your blocked senders and addresses, but you can Cmd/Ctrl - A to copy the list into a text file if you want to keep a record of it for any reason.

And also quite good to know that the All Mail filter, which does show Spam emails, doesn't show blocked emails; they just sit in your Spam box.

What happens after you unblock someone?

After you’ve unblocked someone, any new emails from that sender will arrive normally in your Inbox again.

I’ve mentioned this a couple of times already, but just in case, any old emails that were blocked and went to Spam stay in Spam, unblocking isn’t retroactive.

If you need to recover a specific old email, you’ll have to search through your Spam folder for the sender's address before it auto-purges, because don’t forget Spam is cleared every 30 days.

Sometimes emails still go to your Spam after you’ve unblocked a sender, and that could be down to a filter, so just double-check in All Settings > Filters and Blocked Addresses tab that you haven’t got any filters set up in there. If you do, delete it to see if that works.

How to prevent accidentally blocked email Gmail

If you keep blocking senders by accident, it’s usually because Gmail makes it very easy to do from the message menu, especially on mobile. So before you use Block, check if you actually want to stop all future emails from that sender, or if you just want less inbox clutter.

For promotional emails, I’d say always unsubscribe; it removes you from the mailing list at the source, while blocking only sends future messages to Spam. For real spam, suspicious senders, or people you genuinely do not want to hear from, blocking, I think, is still the answer.

If your inbox has a lot of senders you keep meaning to unblock or unsubscribe from, I can really recommend the Email Cleanup, a feature in CleanMyMac's My Tools. It can help you review your Gmail inbox faster.

Once you’ve connected your account using a standard Google sign-in, it can then start to group clutter by type, also sender, year, and even attachment size, letting you unsubscribe from newsletters, remove promotions, or archive messages in bulk instead of chasing each address one by one.

You get to review and confirm before any actions are committed, and then anything you do delete goes to your Gmail Trash, where they’re recoverable for 30 days. Try CleanMyMac for free.

So, that’s pretty much it on how to unblock email on Gmail.