Reporting Spam and Phishing via Gmail

This article explains how to use built-in tools for reporting spam and phishing emails within Google.

Gmail has built in tools for reporting spam and phishing emails.

Customers should be encouraged to use these tools when they encounter such emails, regardless of whether they report the incident directly to us.

There are notable differences between spam and phishing.

• Spam is simply unsolicited junk mail, sent by a business looking to sell or advertise services. It is annoying but rarely harmful.

• Phishing is designed to trick someone into performing an action (clicking a link, opening an attachment, etc) that will lead to the disclosure of sensitive information. Often the sender will impersonate someone’s name or email address to appear more legitimate.

 Instructions

To report spam or phishing via Gmail:

1. Open the email message (it is safe to merely open an email and look at it). The risk occurs when you click on links or open attachments within the messages. 

2. In the message, click the three dots (next to the reply icon in the upper right corner).
   

3. If the message is spam, click Report Spam.

4. If the message is phishing, click Report Phishing.

5. In either case, the original message will be removed from the sender’s inbox once the report is submitted.

 More information

If you need additional assistance, please reach out to the Help Desk.