Glossary.

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

Account: An iCloud Mail address you add on Settings. Mail Shepherd signs in to it directly, without Mail.
App-specific password: A password you make for Mail Shepherd at account.apple.com (Create App Password…). It isn’t your Apple Account password, it’s kept in this Mac’s keychain, and you can revoke it at any time.
Account menu: The menu beside Sweep, also on Contacts, Review Blocked and Review Junk: All Accounts, or one account. Choosing on one page chooses on all. Automate has its own, for what Auto-Sweep sweeps.
Contacts: Your iCloud contacts, read from each account and kept only as hashes of their addresses, with their domains. Mail from a contact is never treated as junk or caught by a Blocked Domain; only blocking the sender blocks it. A Sweep doesn’t run until contacts have been read.
Re-Hash: Hold Shift, Control, Option or Command and Refresh on Contacts becomes Re-Hash: a new hashing key, then every account’s contacts read again.
Mail’s Blocked Sender List: The senders you block in Mail (Mail → Settings → Junk Mail → Blocked). Once you link it on Settings, Mail Shepherd reads it before each Sweep. It never changes it.
Blocked sender: An address on Mail’s Blocked Sender List or on Mail Shepherd’s own Blocked Senders. A Sweep and the Review pages treat both alike. All of them are listed on Blocked Senders.
Blocked Domain: A domain on Blocked Domains. Mail from it and its subdomains, from any address, is marked junk and read and moved to Trash by every Sweep, from Junk and from the Inbox, except mail from your contacts.
Allowed Domain: A domain on Allowed Domains. A Sweep moves its junk to your Inbox instead of to Trash, if it passes the spoof checks.
Exact domain, parent domain: For news@mail.shop.example, the exact domain is mail.shop.example and the parent domain is shop.example. Blocking the parent covers all its subdomains. Parent domains follow the Public Suffix List, so shop.co.uk is a parent, not co.uk.
Shared provider: A domain many unrelated people send from, such as gmail.com, or a mailing or hosting service. It can’t be blocked as a domain; block the sender instead.
Other junk: Junk that isn’t from a blocked sender, Blocked Domain, Allowed Domain or contact. A Sweep marks it read and moves it to Trash, marked junk, and it’s listed on Review Junk.
Spoof checks: Failed Authentication, Reply-To Elsewhere, Display Name Hides Address and Lookalike Domain, which catch mail pretending to be from someone else. Turn them on (enforce them) in Settings → Spoof Detection; enforced, a failing message is junk. A message’s details show every check as Pass, Fail or Not Checked.
Kept in Junk: Mail from a contact or an Allowed Domain that a Sweep leaves in Junk, because iCloud didn’t authenticate it or it failed a spoof check (enforced or not). It’s listed on Review Junk.
Conflict: A sender your lists disagree about, such as a contact who is also a blocked sender. The Sweep Log says which rule won.
Sweep: Cleans up Trash, then Junk, then the Inbox: marks unread Trash read, moves junk to Trash (or to your Inbox for contacts and Allowed Domains), and moves mail from Blocked Domains out of the Inbox. See Sweep.
Auto-Sweep: A Sweep Mail Shepherd runs on its own, on the schedule you choose on Automate, while it’s open and idle.
Unconfirmed: A change iCloud didn’t confirm. It’s logged as “Unconfirmed: …” and not counted; the next Sweep tries again.
Recent Changes: On Automate: the latest Auto-Sweeps that changed anything, each of which opens its changes message by message.
Message details: What you see when you click a Review row, in place of the list: the message, its spoof checks, and ways to block, allow, open or delete it. See Message Details.
Sweep Logs: One log per Sweep and Auto-Sweep, with its result and what it changed. Verbose in Settings also lists every message left as it is.
Action Log: The record of everything Mail Shepherd changed, and every problem, kept for 4 weeks. See Action Log.
Warning triangle: An orange triangle that appears when something didn’t work. Point at it to read the problem; click it to open the Action Log.

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