Both options stop email from reaching you, but they work differently and suit different situations.
Deactivating an alias
Turning off an alias stops all email to that alias — from every sender. The alias is still yours, nothing is deleted, and you can reactivate it any time.
Use this when:
- A specific alias has been exposed and you want to stop everything coming through it
- You signed up to something and want to pause that whole email pipeline temporarily
- You want to keep the alias address reserved but stop receiving from it for now
Blacklisting a sender
Blocking a sender stops email from that address or domain across all your aliases. Other senders to the same alias still go through normally.
Use this when:
- A specific sender is the problem, not the alias itself — you still want other emails through that alias
- A domain is sending you junk and you want to block the whole domain in one rule
- You want to keep the alias active for legitimate senders while silencing one bad actor
The typical spam scenario
A service you signed up to sold your alias to a third-party marketer. You're getting spam from promo@marketingfirm.com but you still want emails from the actual service you signed up to.
Deactivating the alias would stop both. Blacklisting promo@marketingfirm.com — or even the whole marketingfirm.com domain — stops the spam while leaving the alias active for everything else.
Using both together
They're not mutually exclusive. You might deactivate an alias that's been fully compromised and also blacklist the worst offending domains so they can't exploit other aliases if you ever reuse a similar address.