Automate.

Mail Shepherd 3.0 for the Mac App Store (build 535) · Updated October 24, 2026

Automate is where Mail Shepherd works on its own while it’s open: Auto-Sweep runs Sweeps on a schedule, and Recent Changes shows what they did.

Auto-Sweep

Choose how often to sweep from the menu: Never, Every Minute, Every 5 Minutes, Every 15 Minutes or Every Hour. Beside it, the account menu chooses what Auto-Sweep sweeps: All Accounts or one account. This menu is Automate’s own; it doesn’t change the account menu on Sweep and the Review pages. Until you add an account in Settings, both menus are dimmed.

An Auto-Sweep does exactly what clicking Sweep on the Sweep page does, and its results show there and on Sweep Logs. Beside the menus, “Next in 4 min” counts down to the next one, and “Last at …” says when the last Sweep ran.

Auto-Sweep runs only while Mail Shepherd is open (see Open at Login in Settings). When a Sweep is due, it waits, showing “Next when Mail Shepherd is idle”, until:

• nothing else is running and no dialog is open,
• the Sweep, Automate, Review Blocked or Review Junk page is showing (not a message’s details), and
• you haven’t clicked, typed or scrolled in Mail Shepherd for 20 seconds.

A turn that comes while a Sweep is running, or within half an interval after one finished, is skipped, so Sweeps never pile up. After the Mac wakes, a due Auto-Sweep waits a minute for the network to come back. An account iCloud refused to sign in to is skipped until it signs in again (a Sweep you start, or Test in Settings, tries again). While Auto-Sweep is on, Mail Shepherd keeps macOS from putting it to rest in the background.

Auto-Sweep never shows alerts: its problems go to the Action Log and Sweep Logs, and the Sweep page shows a warning icon.

Recent Changes

Lists the latest Auto-Sweeps that changed anything, newest first (up to 25, from the last two months), each with when it finished, the account it swept, and what it did, such as “Moved 3 to Trash · Marked 2 read · Moved 1 to Inbox”. Auto-Sweeps that changed nothing aren’t listed; until one changes something, it says “No changes yet.”

Click a row to see that Auto-Sweep’s changes, message by message, from the Action Log: the Change (Marked Read, Moved to Trash, Moved to Inbox, Moved to Junk or Blocked Domain), Sender, Subject, Received and Mailbox. ↑ and ↓ show the Auto-Sweep above or below it, and Done (Esc) goes back to Automate. The Action Log keeps four weeks, so for an older Auto-Sweep (or after Clear Log) it says “The Action Log no longer has this Sweep’s messages.”

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