Blocking and Unblocking Subscribers

Blocking prevents a subscriber from receiving any emails. Use it when processing unsubscribe requests, suppressing opted-out contacts, or responding to spam complaints.

Blocking is not the same as deletion — the subscriber record remains and can be unblocked later.

Blocking

Pass an array of subscriber identifiers to block(). All identifier forms are supported:

await client.subscribers.block([
  { email: 'opt-out@example.com' },
  { id: 1042 },
  { phoneNumber: '+46701234567' },
  { customIdentifier: 'ext-user-123' },
]);

To receive a webhook notification when the operation completes, pass a callbackUrl:

await client.subscribers.block(
  [{ email: 'opt-out@example.com' }],
  { callbackUrl: 'https://yourapp.com/webhooks/rule' },
);

Unblocking

await client.subscribers.unblock([
  { email: 'opt-in@example.com' },
  { id: 1042 },
  { phoneNumber: '+46701234567' },
  { customIdentifier: 'ext-user-123' },
]);

To receive a webhook notification when unblocking completes:

await client.subscribers.unblock(
  [{ email: 'opt-in@example.com' }],
  { callbackUrl: 'https://yourapp.com/webhooks/rule' },
);

Asynchronous behaviour

block() and unblock() are asynchronous — Rule.io accepts the request immediately and processes it in the background. See Asynchronous Operations for details.

Subscriber identifiers

For a full description of the four identifier forms (email, id, phoneNumber, customIdentifier), see Subscriber Identifiers.

Next steps

• Suppress contacts permanently for compliance: Managing Suppressions
• Set up automatic tag assignment on events: Email Automations