Midjourney Prompt Blocked or Flagged: What to Do

Why a prompt is rejected by the moderator, and how to rewrite it without losing the idea.

Updated August 13, 2026

Midjourney runs every prompt through an automated moderator before it reaches the model. A block is not a bug.

Why prompts get flagged

  • Banned words, including medical and anatomical terms used innocently.
  • Named public figures in certain contexts.
  • Gore, explicit content, or violence descriptors.
  • Attempts to circumvent the filter with spacing, symbols or misspellings — these escalate faster than the original term would.

Rewriting a flagged prompt

  1. Replace the flagged term with a visual description of the same idea. "Blood" becomes "deep crimson liquid".
  2. Remove intensifiers such as "brutal" or "graphic" — they trip the classifier independently.
  3. Describe the composition and lighting instead of the subject's state.
  4. Never obfuscate with b l o o d or bl00d. The filter catches it and it counts as an evasion attempt.

Warnings and bans

Repeated flags produce warnings, then a temporary suspension, then a permanent ban. If you believe a block was a false positive, appeal through your Midjourney account page rather than repeating the prompt.

Silent failures

Sometimes a flagged job simply never returns instead of showing an error. If jobs vanish with no message, see Midjourney not loading? Fix stuck jobs fast.

Related help

Related help