Blocked Domains.

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

On the left are the Domains of Blocked Senders; on the right, your Blocked Domains. A Blocked Domain covers its subdomains too, and catches mail from any address there. Every Sweep handles that mail in Trash, Junk and the Inbox: in Junk and the Inbox it’s marked junk and read and moved to Trash; in Trash it’s marked read.

• The menu at the left of the toolbar switches the left list between Parent Domains (subdomains combined, so mail.shop.example counts toward shop.example) and Exact Domains (each one as it is). Parent domains follow the Public Suffix List, so shop.co.uk is one domain, not co.uk.
• The left list leaves out shared email providers such as gmail.com, mailing services such as substack.com, hosting services such as github.io, domains with only one blocked sender, domains your contacts use (or a subdomain of), and domains that are already blocked.
• The Senders column counts the blocked addresses (from Mail Shepherd or Mail’s Blocked Sender List) at each domain. Click a column header to sort by it, and click it again to reverse the order.
• Check domains (click anywhere on a row), then click Block or Unblock to move them across. Each button shows how many are checked, such as Block (2).
• + in the right list’s footer adds a domain you type, such as example.com. A typed domain isn’t checked against the shared providers, so be sure it belongs to one sender.
• The search box filters both lists. Refresh reads the blocked senders and your contacts again; while it reads, it turns into Stop.

Changes are saved at once and recorded in the Action Log, and the Review lists are matched again right away: a newly blocked domain’s messages move to Review Blocked, and the next Sweep handles its mail. The lists can’t change while a Sweep or other work is running.

Which rule wins

• A blocked sender is always blocked, whatever its domain.
• Your contacts’ own addresses aren’t caught by a Blocked Domain, unless the message fails a spoof check that’s on in Settings.
• If a domain is both blocked and allowed, the more specific entry wins: blocking mail.shop.example while allowing shop.example blocks only mail.shop.example. If both name the same domain, blocking wins.

Until your contacts have been read, the page is disabled and says “This page needs your contacts: click Refresh on the Contacts page.”, with Go to Contacts. That keeps you from blocking a domain your contacts use.

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