Deleting and Safety.

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

• Mail Shepherd never deletes anything on its own. A Sweep or Auto-Sweep moves mail to Trash but never deletes it. Only Delete Selected (on Review Blocked and Review Junk) and Delete Permanently (on a message’s details) delete mail, and only the messages you choose.
• Delete Selected deletes the selected messages in Trash permanently, and moves the selected messages in Junk to Trash.
• Delete Permanently deletes one message for good. A message in Junk is moved to Trash first, then deleted from Trash.
• Messages deleted from Trash are gone for good and can’t be recovered, in Mail or on any of your devices.
• With Ask Before Deleting on (on Settings), both buttons ask first. “Don’t ask again” in the question turns it off. Holding Shift, Control, Option or Command while you click makes them ask even when it’s off.

Checks before deleting

• Each message must still belong on the page, by your lists and contacts as they are now: a sender you’ve just unblocked or added to your contacts isn’t deleted.
• Each message is read again from iCloud and must still be the one you saw (sender, subject, Message-ID and date). One that has changed or is gone is left alone.
• Each deletion is written to the Action Log before it happens; if the log can’t be written, nothing is deleted. Afterwards, each one is logged as deleted, or as “Unconfirmed” if iCloud still has it.
• Any message that wasn’t deleted is left as it was, with the reason on the page and in the Action Log.

A delete works with iCloud directly, so you can keep using Mail while it runs. ⌘. stops it after the current step.

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