> This page is part of the [Customer.io documentation](https://docs.customer.io). For the complete index, see [llms.txt](https://docs.customer.io/llms.txt).
> Last updated: June 26, 2026

# How to manage suppressions

## How it works

The **Workspace suppressions** page gives you a single place to review the people and email addresses that Customer.io won’t message. From here you see can which people are suppressed for GDPR compliance and remove a profile from the suppression list.

Go to > [*Workspace Settings > Workspace Suppressions*](https://fly.customer.io/workspaces/last/settings/suppressions) to get started.

### Email suppressions

Your email service provider (ESP) maintains a suppression list to protect your deliverability. Your ESP suppresses an email address in these circumstances:

*   A message experiences a **hard bounce**, that is, the recipient address doesn’t exist or the recipient’s server blocked delivery.
*   A person logs a **spam complaint** against one of your messages.
*   You suppress the address through the [ESP Suppression API](/integrations/api/app/#tag/ESP-Suppression).

Suppressions from a hard bounce or spam complaint apply to the sending domain, while suppressions made through the ESP Suppression API apply across *every* domain in your workspaces.

An ESP-suppressed email address only prevents the address from receiving *emails*; a suppressed person can still receive messages on other channels and enter campaigns.

For a full explanation, see [Email suppression lists](/journeys/channels/email/deliverability/esp-suppression/).

 If you use a [**Custom SMTP** server](/journeys/channels/email/deliverability/custom-smtp/use-your-smtp-server/), you can only view and manage your email suppression list directly from your ESP.

### GDPR suppressions

When you [delete and suppress a person](/journeys/people/manage/deleting-users/#how-suppressing-ids-works), Customer.io suppresses *all* of that person’s identifiersThe attributes you use to add, modify, and target people. Each unique identifier value represents an individual person in your workspace. (such as their `id` and `email`). This is typically used to honor a “right to be forgotten” request for GDPR compliance.

When a profile’s identifiers are suppressed:

*   You can’t re-add a person with the same identifiers. Any attempt to do so is ignored or returns an error.
*   Activity attributed to the suppressed person is redacted. Activity logs show anonymous entries for the suppressed identifiers.

## Export people suppressed for GDPR

You can export a list of the profiles you’ve suppressed for GDPR compliance. You might do this to verify that someone is on the list or to confirm a “right to be forgotten” request was honored.

1.  Go to > [*Workspace Settings > Workspace Suppressions*](https://fly.customer.io/workspaces/last/settings/suppressions).
2.  Export the list of suppressed people.

We provide the list as a CSV file. To protect the privacy of the people on the list, we hash suppressed ids and email addresses in the CSV using SHA-256.

To verify the hashed values against the original identifiers, you need to hash the original id or email to compare them. Alternatively, if you stored the `cio_id`, Customer.io’s unique identifier, elsewhere, you can directly compare this id against the one in the CSV; it’s not hashed.

## Remove a profile from the GDPR suppression list

When you unsuppress a profile, its identifiers become available to use in your workspace again. If you re-add a person with the unsuppressed identifiers, Customer.io creates a *new* person without any of the history (messages, journeys, and so on) previously associated with those identifiers.

1.  Go to > [*Workspace Settings > Suppressions*](https://fly.customer.io/workspaces/last/settings/suppressions).
2.  Under *GDPR suppression list removal*, search by email or id.
3.  Select the profile you want to remove.
4.  Click **Unsuppress**.

You can also unsuppress identifiers [programmatically with the Track API](/integrations/api/track/#operation/unsuppress) or using a [semantic event through the Pipelines API](/integrations/api/cdp/#description/deletions-suppressions-and-other-semantic-events).

Removing a profile from the GDPR suppression list is different from removing an email address from your [ESP suppression list](/journeys/channels/email/deliverability/esp-suppression/#remove-emails-from-suppression-list). When you unsuppress a profile, you free up its identifiers so you can re-add them to your workspace and send them messages; when you unsuppress an email address, the only change is that the address can receive emails again.

*   *   [How it works](#how-it-works)
        *   [Email suppressions](#email-suppressions)
        *   [GDPR suppressions](#gdpr-suppressions)
    *   [Export people suppressed for GDPR](#export-people-suppressed-for-gdpr)
    *   [Remove a profile from the GDPR suppression list](#remove-a-profile-from-the-gdpr-suppression-list)

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