How to Block or Unblock a Sender in Microsoft Outlook

By Maria Victoria Updated July 23, 2024 Reviewed & Updated by Paurush Chaudhary

Quick Tips

You can block emails that are spam or contain ads in your Outlook account.
On the Desktop app, right-click on your sender’s email > select Junk > Block Sender.
On the Mobile app, select the email > three dots > Report Junk > Block Sender.

How to Block an Email Address on Microsoft Outlook for Desktop

On Microsoft Outlook for desktop, users can use the Block Sender feature to prevent emails from certain email addresses from getting into their inbox. If you recently received an email from an unwanted address, here’s how to block the sender:

Step 1: Open the Outlook app and sign in to your account.

Step 2: Open your Inbox folder and click on the recent email from the email address to be blocked.

Step 3: Right-click on the email to view a list of options, click on Junk, and choose Block Sender.

Step 4: Click Ok to confirm.

By blocking the sender, Outlook will send all future emails from the email address to the Junk folder.

Unblock an Email Address on Microsoft Outlook for Desktop

It may happen that when using the Outlook Block Sender feature, you blocked the wrong address. You may change your mind about blocking a particular email address. If you find yourself in such scenarios, here’s what to do to unblock the email address:

Step 1: Open the Outlook app and go to your Junk Email folder.

Step 2: Click on the recent mail from the email address for unblocking.

Step 3: Right-click on the email to view a list of options, click on Junk, and select Never Block Sender.

Step 4: Click on Ok to close the pop-up.

By adding the email address to the Safe Senders list, Microsoft Outlook will never treat any future communication as junk.

How to Block an Email Address on Microsoft Outlook for Web

Unlike Outlook for Desktop, where you need to rely on receiving an email from an email address before you can block it, Outlook for Web has a different process. All you need to know is the email address or domain, and you can add it to a Blocked Senders list. Here’s how it works:

Step 1: Open a browser and sign in to Outlook for web.

Step 2: Click the Settings icon at the top-right corner and choose View all Outlook settings.

Step 3: At the left of the Outlook window, click on Email > Junk email.

Step 4: Beneath the Junk email setting, you should see a pane titled Blocked senders and domains. Click on the Add option to launch a text box.

Step 5: Type the email address you want to block in the text box > click Save.

Following the steps above, you can continue to add the email addresses to the block list. However, you can only have up to 1,024 addresses in the blocked senders list. To increase the capacity you can block, block domains instead of individual email addresses.

Unblock an Email Address on Microsoft Outlook for Web

Step 1: Open Outlook web > Settings > View all Outlook settings.

Step 2: At the left of the Outlook window, click on Email > Junk email.

Step 3: Beneath the Junk email setting, you should see a pane titled Blocked senders and domains. Go through the list of email addresses under it to identify the address for unblocking.