Announcement: Banning by IP address in messaging

Announced on | Rollout starts | Rollout ends
July 30, 2025 | July 30, 2025 | August 12, 2025

We're excited to announce the launch of IP Blocking in Messaging, a powerful new way for Zendesk customers to protect their agents and services from malicious, spammy, or abusive users. This feature expands on our user suspension capability by allowing you to block all users coming from a specific IP address, making it especially effective against bad actors who evade bans by creating multiple accounts.

This announcement includes the following topics:

What is changing?

Why is Zendesk making this change?

What do I need to do?

What is changing?

Admins and eligible agents in Zendesk Messaging can now:

Block users by IP address directly from the Admin Center (subnet and wildcard support included).

View and manage banned IPs, including search, sort, and audit log support.

Enable role-based permissions to grant ban capabilities to custom roles or agents.

Automatically block disruptive or anonymous users, even when they have no account profile.

Trigger bans via automation using business logic or AI signals.

Once banned, users from a blocked IP address will see an error message in the messaging Web Widget or mobile SDKs. Active sessions are terminated in real-time, and the messaging launcher is hidden on future visits.

Why is Zendesk making this change?

Zendesk is committed to helping you maintain safe, productive, and compliant customer experiences. IP Blocking:

Closes a key feature gap between live chat and messaging, supporting our top-five initiative to migrate more customers to messaging.

Protects against coordinated spam, scams, and fraud that can disrupt agent productivity and overwhelm support queues.

Supports compliance and business needs like geo-restrictions or regulatory limitations.

Empowers AI-first workflows, allowing bots to detect and suggest IP blocks automatically.

This capability is already used by high-volume support teams in Chat, and we’re bringing it to messaging to help you scale your protection without friction.

What do I need to do?

Enable IP blocking for agents in custom roles (Enterprise and above plans only).

Use the IP Ban page to view, add, edit, or remove banned IPs.

Review your automations: You can use triggers and AI signals to recommend IP bans based on custom logic.

Review messaging SDK behavior: For mobile and web, the error experience will be updated to reflect blocked status.

No action is required if you are not currently using messaging or do not manage abuse cases via IP.

Visit our help center documentation for more information about using this feature:

About banning IP addresses from messaging channels

Restricting access to messaging channels by IP address

Managing IP addresses banned from accessing messaging channels

Accessing and using the Banned IP addresses page in Admin Center