How to Block Spammers on Google Drive

As you might expect, blocking users AKA spammers on Google Drive is relatively easy.

  1. First open Google Drive and head over to the Shared with me tab in the left sidebar where you shall find files people shared with you.
  2. Now right-click on the spam file and select Block ‘users’ email ID‘.
  3. This will open a small pop-up window where you can verify email id. Click on Block to confirm the decision. As a single email id could be responsible for sending spam files repeatedly, blocking email id in Google Drive could reduce a lot of incoming spam. Also, remember this will not remove your email id from the spammers’ contact list. Nonetheless, it’s a welcome change for the Drive users.

How to Unblock Users on Google Drive

Accidently blocked someone you didn’t want to? You can unblock them easily but there’s a caveat. As soon as you block them, the files they have shared with you until now will be deleted instantly, and there is no way to get these shared files back. You will need to ask the user to share the required files again. Having said that, here’s how you can unblock the user in Google Drive.

  1. To unblock a user on Google Drive, open Google Account settings. You can do that by clicking on the profile pic at the top right corner in Drive and then selecting Manage your Google Account.
  2. Here, open the People and sharing option, scroll down, and select Blocked under Contacts.
  3. Here you shall find all the blocked users’ email IDs in a list. Just click on the cross icon X beside the user account that you want to unblock and that’s it — you have unblocked the Google Drive user.

Wrap Up: Fight Spam on Google Drive

While you have more ways to fight Google Drive spam than before, it also can be risky as the files they share will be deleted. So if you are blocking someone on Google Drive, but need a file they shared with you, download it in advance. Also, searching for the name of the user in Google Drive will display all the files that are shared between you two. That way, you can quickly skim through the files and save them before blocking. Also Read:

How to Transfer Ownership in Google DriveHow to Transfer Google Drive Data to OneDrive Easily