Beta

Shadow Ban

Clean up your inbox, quietly.

A Chrome extension that lets you ban unwanted email senders with one click. Their emails silently skip your inbox -- no unsubscribe emails, no sender notifications, no awkward moments.

What It Does

One-click ban

Select any emails in Gmail, click the ban icon in the toolbar. That sender's future emails will never appear in your inbox again.

Old emails cleaned up too

When you ban someone, Shadow Ban moves all their existing emails out of your inbox automatically. If you have thousands, it works through them in the background -- you can even close Gmail and it'll finish later.

Nothing is deleted

Banned emails are moved to an "Unsubscribe" label in Gmail. You can find them there anytime. Changed your mind? Unban a sender and their emails come right back to your inbox.

The sender never knows

Unlike unsubscribe, the sender gets no notification. No "you've been removed" emails. They just quietly disappear from your inbox.

How to Install

1

Download the extension

Click the download button below to get the Shadow Ban zip file. Unzip it into a folder on your computer.

2

Open Chrome's extensions page

Type chrome://extensions into Chrome's address bar and press Enter.

3

Turn on Developer Mode

Find the Developer mode toggle in the top right corner of the page and turn it on.

This is safe and required for beta extensions that aren't on the Chrome Web Store yet.
4

Load the extension

Click Load unpacked and select the folder you unzipped in step 1. Shadow Ban will appear in your extensions list.

5

Go to Gmail

Open Gmail in Chrome. The first time you select an email and click the ban icon, you'll see a Google permissions prompt. Approve it once and you're all set.

Shadow Ban needs permission to create filters and move emails within your Gmail account.

How to Use It

Banning a sender

In Gmail, select one or more emails using the checkboxes on the left. Click the ban icon (a circle with a slash) in the toolbar -- it's in the row with archive, spam, and delete. A banner at the bottom confirms the ban and shows cleanup progress.

Managing your bans

Click the Shadow Ban icon in Chrome's toolbar (top right of the browser -- you may need to click the puzzle piece icon to find it). This opens your dashboard where you can see everyone you've banned and unban them individually or in bulk.

Unbanning a sender

When you unban someone from the dashboard, their emails are moved back to your inbox. It's completely reversible.

Download Shadow Ban

Get the beta extension and start cleaning up your inbox today.

Download Beta

Requires Google Chrome and a Gmail account.

Found an issue or have feedback?

Send an email to tom@tommcfarlin.com with what happened and we'll look into it.