Gmail – Approve a Sender’s Email Address Before Seeing Message Contents

gmailspam-prevention

I'm receiving abusive emails from an individual on my Gmail account. I have blocked their emails but they just keep making new email addresses (I have to turn the page multiple times to reach the end of my Gmail block list it is that bad). I can't change my address as it has too many important things linked to it. Is there a way to see the senders email address without seeing the message contents and then, only once you approve that sender are you able to read the message. (I can tell it is the abusive person because they use distinctive email addresses.)

Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

Best Answer

Yes, you can see the sender's email address before you open the message. In the message list, simply hover your mouse over the sender's name. After about a second, a usercard will popup which will display, among other things, the email address.

message list with user card displayed

You can then copy the email address (to add to your block list) and delete the message without looking at it.

Unfortunately, the other part of your question, only displaying messages from addresses you approve, isn't something that's part of Gmail. (At least, not practically. You can create a custom search that only pulls back the emails that you want, but it'd be an ever expanding list and you'd eventually run out of room in the search field. See: How to implement a white-list-based system in Gmail?)