Blocking IP addresses on messaging channels

Messaging channels can be closed to particular IP addresses, which is how you stop persistent abuse through the widget.

Messaging channels can be closed to particular IP addresses, which is how you stop persistent abuse through the widget.

Ban an address

1. Open Admin Center and find the banned IP addresses page.
2. Add the address.
3. Save. Conversations from it are refused.

When to use it

Sustained abuse from one source: automated rubbish through the widget, or somebody returning repeatedly after being asked to stop. It is a blunt instrument for a situation where politeness has been tried.

What it will not do

• Stop a determined person. Addresses change, and phones move networks.
• Distinguish people. An office or a school shares one address, so blocking it blocks everyone there.

That second point deserves care. A corporate customer behind one address means blocking their whole company, and nobody will tell you; their messages simply stop arriving.

Prefer narrower tools

For one abusive individual, suspending the user is better: it is targeted, it is recorded, and it does not affect anyone else.

For automated rubbish, the widget allowlist and authentication reduce the supply more reliably than chasing addresses.

Write down why

A banned address produces no error and no trace on your side. In six months nobody will remember, and somebody will spend an afternoon working out why one company's messages never arrive.

See also

• Using an allowlist to control where the widget appears
• Suspending and deleting users
• Authenticating end users in messaging