# Suppressions

> Exclude contacts from outreach across email, phone, and LinkedIn, and reinstate them when needed.

Source: https://docs.graph8.com/data/suppressions/

Suppressions are contacts you never want to reach. A suppressed contact is excluded from outreach across sequences, the dialer, and LinkedIn, so you don't accidentally contact competitors, existing customers, or anyone who has opted out.

Go to **Data → Suppressions** to see who's suppressed, from where, and why.

## How to suppress contacts

Contacts are added to suppressions from a **list**. Open any contact list, select the contacts you want to exclude, open the three-dot (⋮) menu, and choose **Add to Suppressions**.

![The list three-dot menu open, showing bulk actions including Add to Suppressions for the selected contacts](https://docs.graph8.com/images/data/list-bulk-actions.png)

Pick which channels the suppression applies to:

![The Add to suppressions dialog: suppress the selected contacts on All channels, Email, Phone, or LinkedIn](https://docs.graph8.com/images/data/add-to-suppressions.png)

| Option | Effect |
|--------|--------|
| **All channels** | Excludes the contacts from every outreach channel |
| **Email** | Excludes them from email only |
| **Phone** | Excludes them from dialer/SMS only |
| **LinkedIn** | Excludes them from LinkedIn outreach only |

Confirm with **Add to suppressions**. The contacts appear on the Suppressions page immediately.

> **Note:**
> Uploading a suppression CSV directly is no longer supported. To suppress people in bulk, import or build a list first (see [Managing Lists](https://docs.graph8.com/data/managing-lists/)), then use **Add to Suppressions** on that list.

## The Suppressions page

![The Suppressions page: Contact, Email/Phone, Company, Channel, and Category columns with a Reinstate action per row](https://docs.graph8.com/images/data/suppressions-list.png)

Each row shows:

- **Contact** and **Company**
- **Email / Phone**: the identifiers being suppressed
- **Channel**: which outreach the suppression covers (e.g. All outreach)
- **Category** and **Source / Origin**: why the contact was suppressed and where it came from (for example, a manual bulk add by your team)
- **Reinstate**: removes the contact from suppressions so they can be contacted again

### Account-wide vs channel-specific

The **Channel-specific opt-outs** toggle at the top of the page controls how suppressions are scoped:

- **Off (account-wide)**: a suppression blocks the contact everywhere
- **On (channel-specific)**: suppressions are tracked per channel, so a contact can be suppressed on one channel but reachable on another

Use **View details** to manage this behavior under **Settings → Channels → Preferences** (open **Settings** from the profile menu in the top-right).

## Reinstating a contact

Click **Reinstate** on any row to remove that contact from suppressions. They become eligible for outreach again on the channels that were suppressed.

## Related compliance tools

Suppressions sit alongside the broader compliance controls:

- The **global suppression list** and **Do Not Contact (DNC)** list also block outreach and are managed under **Settings → Compliance**.
- Unsubscribes, hard bounces (when enabled), and spam complaints feed those lists automatically.

See [Compliance](https://docs.graph8.com/settings/compliance/) for the global suppression list, DNC, and unsubscribe handling.

## Next Steps

- [Managing Lists →](https://docs.graph8.com/data/managing-lists/): Build the lists you suppress from
- [Compliance →](https://docs.graph8.com/settings/compliance/): Global suppression list, DNC, and unsubscribe handling
- [Sequencer →](https://docs.graph8.com/engage/sequencer/): Outreach that respects your suppressions