Message Details.

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

Click a row on Review Blocked or Review Junk to see the message’s details. They take the place of the whole page; Done (Esc) takes you back to the list. Each Review page remembers the message you had open while you go to other pages; a Sweep takes both back to their lists. The details come from the message’s headers only; Mail Shepherd never reads its contents.

Message

One field per line: the Subject, the sender’s Email and Name (each with a copy button, handy for Contacts or a search in Mail), Reply-To (only when replies go to a different address), the Domain and Parent Domain (only when they differ, such as mail.shop.example and shop.example), when it was Sent and Received, and its Mailbox and account. On Review Junk, Marked Junk says whether the message is marked junk, and Kept in Junk says why a Sweep leaves a contact’s or an Allowed Domain’s message in Junk (it wasn’t authenticated by iCloud, or it failed a spoof check). Mail from a mailing list shows Subscription, with the list’s name and whether it offers one-click unsubscribe.

Open in Mail, in the section’s header, asks Mail to show the message, if Mail has this account. Mail may mark it read. To unsubscribe from a mailing list, open the message in Mail and use Mail’s Unsubscribe.

Spoof Checks

Every spoof check’s result for this message: Authentication, Reply-To, Display Name and Lookalike Domain, each with Pass, Fail or Not Checked and why. The header shows the score, such as “3 of 4 passed”, in green when all passed and red otherwise; checks with nothing to go on are left out of the score.

A check turned on in Settings → Spoof Detection has an Enforced label: a Sweep treats a message that fails it as junk. The others are dimmed and labeled Off. All four still count for mail from a contact or an Allowed Domain: a Sweep moves it out of Junk only when it passes them all and iCloud authenticated it.

Block

Each row has a button, the address or domain it acts on, and a short note when it’s already blocked or can’t be used. Blocking happens at once, without asking. Point at a dimmed button to see why.

• Block Sender adds the address to Mail Shepherd’s Blocked Senders. The sender’s messages on Review Junk are marked read, and those in Junk move to Trash, so they show on Review Blocked. It doesn’t change Mail’s Blocked Sender List. When the sender is already blocked, the note says Blocked in Mail Shepherd, or On Mail’s Blocked Sender List when they’re on it.
• Block Exact Domain adds the sender’s domain (mail.shop.example) to your Blocked Domains, and Block Parent Domain adds its parent domain (shop.example), which covers all its subdomains. When the two are the same, there’s one Block Domain button. The domain’s messages move to Review Blocked at once, and the next Sweep handles its mail everywhere, including your Inboxes.
• Delete Permanently deletes the message for good. A message in Junk is moved to Trash first, then deleted from Trash. When Ask Before Deleting is on in Settings (or while you hold Shift, Control, Option or Command), it asks first: “Delete This Message Permanently?” Afterwards the next message’s details show, or the list after the last one.

Shared email providers (such as gmail.com), mailing services and hosting services can’t be blocked as a domain; the note says Shared email provider, Shared mailing service or Shared hosting service, and you can block the sender instead. A domain that’s already covered says Already blocked or Blocked by parent domain; in the second case you can still block the exact domain, so it stays blocked if the parent is unblocked.

Allow

On Review Junk:

• Move to Inbox marks the message not junk and moves it to its account’s Inbox, without asking, then shows the next message.
• Open Contacts… opens the Contacts app, so you can add the sender or add their address to a contact (the copy buttons beside Email and Name help). Mail Shepherd never changes your contacts itself. Once the change syncs to iCloud, the next Sweep moves the sender’s junk to the Inbox.

On Review Blocked, the Allow rows undo what put the message there, each dimmed with a note when it isn’t blocked that way:

• Allow Sender removes the address from Mail Shepherd’s Blocked Senders. A sender on Mail’s Blocked Sender List (the note says On Mail’s list) has to be unblocked in Mail; Mail Shepherd reads that list again before each Sweep.
• Allow Exact Domain and Allow Parent Domain (or Allow Domain) remove the domain from your Blocked Domains. A domain blocked through its parent says “Blocked by” the parent; allow that one instead.

The buttons at the bottom

• The up and down arrow buttons (or the ↑ and ↓ keys) show the message above or below this one in the list, and “3 of 10” shows where you are.
• Done (Esc) takes you back to the list.

While an action runs, its progress and Stop show at the top of the page. A problem shows there as an orange warning icon; click it to open the Action Log, where every change is recorded.

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