How to See and Edit Your Blocked Senders List on iPhone
The short answer
On iPhone, your blocked senders list is in Settings > Mail > Blocked. Blocked mail stays in your inbox with a banner, or moves to Bin, depending on a setting you control under Blocked Sender Options. The list is tied to your device's contact block list and syncs to other Apple devices via iCloud if contact sync is on.
How to see blocked senders list in Mail on iPhone: open Settings > Mail > Blocked. Covers what blocking does, platform differences, and when it fails.
On this page
If you want to know how to see the blocked senders list in Mail on iPhone, the answer is two taps: Settings, then Mail, then Blocked. That is where Apple stores the addresses you have told the Mail app to ignore, and where you add or remove entries. The harder question is what blocking actually does — because it is not what most people assume.
Blocking an email address in iOS Mail does not make the message disappear. By default, the message arrives in your inbox and is marked with a banner that reads 'This message is from a blocked sender.' Whether it stays there or moves automatically to the Bin depends on a second setting, Blocked Sender Options, that sits just below the Blocked list in Settings. Most people who think blocking is broken have it set to mark rather than move.
This guide walks through finding and editing the list, explains the blocked-versus-junk distinction that trips up many users, covers what happens across iPhone, Mac, and iCloud.com, and covers the common reasons a blocked sender keeps getting through.
Before you start: blocked contacts versus blocked email addresses#
iOS does not maintain a separate email-only block list. When you block a sender in the Mail app, iOS adds them to the device's system block list, the same list that Phone, Messages, and FaceTime share. That is why you find the list under Settings > Mail > Blocked rather than inside the Mail app itself.
This matters for a couple of reasons. First, any contact you have blocked via the Phone app will also appear on the Mail blocked list and will have their email silently filtered. Second, the block is tied to an address in Contacts, not to a raw email address you type. If the sender uses a second address, the block does not cover it.
The steps below apply to iOS 16 and later. The path and behavior are essentially the same going back to iOS 13, when Apple added the block-sender feature to Mail.
Junk and Blocked are separate things
How to view, add, and remove blocked senders#
All three actions happen in the same Settings screen. Here are the steps for each.
- 1
Open the blocked list
Open the Settings app on your iPhone. Scroll down and tap Mail. Under the Threading section, tap Blocked. The list shows every email address currently blocked in the Mail app. If you have never blocked anyone, the list is empty.
- 2
Block a sender directly from a message
Open the Mail app and tap any message from the sender you want to block. Tap the sender's name or address at the top of the message. A contact card appears — tap Block this Contact at the bottom. iOS adds the address to the Blocked list immediately. This is the fastest way to block someone you are looking at.
- 3
Add a sender manually via Settings
Go to Settings > Mail > Blocked. Tap Add New at the bottom of the list. Your Contacts picker opens. Select the contact whose email address you want to block. The address is added to the list. If the person is not in your Contacts, add them as a contact first, then come back and add them here.
- 4
Remove a sender from the blocked list
Go to Settings > Mail > Blocked. Either swipe left on the entry and tap Unblock, or tap Edit in the top-right corner, tap the red minus button beside the entry, then tap Delete. The address is removed and future mail from that sender will arrive normally again.
- 5
Choose what happens to blocked mail
Go to Settings > Mail and tap Blocked Sender Options, which is directly below the Blocked entry. You have two choices: Mark as Blocked, Leave in Inbox shows the message in your inbox with a banner so you know it arrived, and Move to Bin moves blocked mail to your Trash automatically. Move to Bin is more aggressive — if you change your mind about a block, you may not notice the messages in Trash before they are deleted. Mark as Blocked, Leave in Inbox keeps them visible but labeled.
Use Mark as Blocked when you are unsure
Does a block on iPhone apply on Mac and iCloud.com too?#
Not automatically, and the behavior differs across all three surfaces. The table below shows where each platform stores its blocked list and whether the iPhone block carries over.
| Platform | Where the blocked list lives | What happens to blocked mail | Syncs with iPhone list? |
|---|---|---|---|
| iPhone / iPad (iOS 16+) | Settings > Mail > Blocked | Marked in inbox or moved to Bin — your choice in Blocked Sender Options | This is the source; syncs out to other iOS and iPadOS devices via iCloud if Contacts sync is on |
| Mac (Apple Mail, macOS 13+) | Mail app > Settings > Junk Mail — a separate Blocked list from the iOS one | Moved to Junk by the junk filter rule; blocked senders are not the same as the iOS system block | No automatic sync. The iOS block list and the Mac Mail blocked list are maintained independently. |
| iCloud.com | Settings gear > Mail Settings > Rules (or Blocked Senders, depending on your iCloud version) | Messages matching a rule go to the folder or action you specify when creating the rule | No automatic sync. iCloud.com rules are separate from device-level blocks. |
| Other Apple devices (iPhone / iPad with same Apple ID) | Settings > Mail > Blocked on each device | Follows the Blocked Sender Options setting on that device | Yes, if iCloud Contacts sync is enabled — the system contact block propagates via iCloud |
What to do when a blocked sender keeps getting through#
If mail from a sender you blocked keeps arriving without any blocked banner, one of several things is happening. Work through the causes below before concluding the feature is broken — it usually is working correctly, just not in the way you expected.
| Symptom | Likely cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Blocked mail arrives with no banner | Blocked Sender Options is set to Mark as Blocked, Leave in Inbox, but you are not noticing the banner; or the mail is arriving via a mailing list address, not the sender's direct address | Check Settings > Mail > Blocked Sender Options. Also open the message and tap the From address — if it shows a list address rather than the person's address, the block only applies to the list, not the individual. |
| Messages keep arriving from the same company | The sender is rotating addresses within the same domain — each message comes from a slightly different address, and the block only covers the specific address you added | Block each new address as it arrives, or use Mail's junk filter by marking messages as Junk, which trains a pattern-based filter rather than an address match. |
| The blocked list shows the address but mail still arrives | The mail is going to a different account connected to your iPhone, and the block only applies to the account it was set on | Check which email account the messages are landing in. Go to Settings > Mail > Blocked on the relevant account, or open the message and confirm the To address. |
| You removed a block but messages now go to Junk instead of inbox | The junk filter was trained independently when you marked earlier messages as Junk, and continues to file them even after the block is removed | Open the Junk folder, select the messages, and tap Not Junk. Do this consistently and the junk filter retrains away from that sender. |
| Block worked on iPhone but not on Mac | The iOS block list and Mac Mail blocked list are separate and do not sync | Add the sender to Mac Mail's blocked list: open Mail on Mac, go to Mail > Settings > Junk Mail, and add the address to the Blocked list there. |
Blocking an address does not stop the sender
A faster way to handle senders that keep getting through#
The reason a blocked sender keeps reappearing is that a block targets one address, and a bulk or persistent sender rotates addresses within the same domain. Blocking address after address is a manual loop with no end.
AI Emaily's cold-email filter approaches this differently. Instead of matching on a single address, it reads sender behavior and domain patterns — so a sender that rotates through variations of the same domain does not reset the filter when they switch addresses. The filter works across Gmail, Outlook, and any IMAP account you connect, which means you do not have to configure it separately for each inbox.
We build AI Emaily. It is an AI-native email client, not a plugin on top of your current app, so the filtering layer and the inbox view are the same product. If you want to handle the category of unwanted mail that individual address blocks cannot reach, that is the gap it fills. It comes with a 7-day free trial.
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Written by
Nafiul HasanNafiul Hasan is an entrepreneur and AI automation system builder with 10+ years of experience turning messy, manual workflows into reliable automated systems. He designs and ships AI enterprise solutions end-to-end — the agent logic, the data plumbing, and the product people actually use — and founded AI Emaily to give busy professionals their attention back. He writes here from the builder's seat: what works, what breaks, and how to put AI to work without giving up control.