Settings.

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

Settings is where you add your iCloud accounts and choose how Mail Shepherd works. Mail Shepherd → Settings… (⌘,) also opens it. It has four boxes, from top to bottom: Mail’s Blocked Sender List, Accounts, Spoof Detection and Configuration. Until you’ve added an account, Accounts comes first.

Mail’s Blocked Sender List

The senders you block in Mail (Mail → Settings → Junk Mail → Blocked) are kept in a file on your Mac, shown beside File. Link it, and Mail Shepherd treats those senders as blocked too: they’re listed on Blocked Senders, and a Sweep and Review Blocked handle their mail. It’s optional; without it, only Mail Shepherd’s own Blocked Senders count.

Status is Linked (green) or Not Linked (red).
Link… opens a file dialog with Mail’s file already selected: click Link. macOS lets an app read a file only when you choose it, which is why this step is needed. Only Mail’s own file can be linked, not a copy.
Once linked, it’s read again before every Sweep, so a sender you block or unblock in Mail counts at the next Sweep. Mail Shepherd only reads it; it never changes Mail’s list.
Unlink… asks first, on the page. Unlinking removes the list’s senders from Blocked Senders (unless Mail Shepherd’s own list has them too), and the file isn’t read again.

Accounts

Each iCloud account Mail Shepherd cleans up, with its Email, Last Connection (the last time it signed in) and Status: a green check when it’s working, or an orange warning triangle (point at it to see why). When an account needs attention, an orange triangle also appears beside Settings in the sidebar.

Test signs in to iCloud Mail with the saved password.
… (or double-clicking the row) lets you change the address or paste a new password.
The trash icon removes the account, after asking in a box under the list, which says what’s removed (the account, its password in this Mac’s keychain, its contacts, and its numbers in the last Sweep’s table) and what’s kept (the logs and your lists, which every account shares). The password itself still works until you revoke it on your Apple Account page. An account can’t be removed while a Sweep or Review action runs.
+, under the list, adds an account.

Adding an account

Adding or editing an account takes over the whole page, in three steps:

Your iCloud Address: your @icloud.com, @me.com or @mac.com address. These share one mailbox, so each Apple Account is added once.
Make an App-Specific Password: click Create App Password…, which opens account.apple.com in your browser. Sign in, click App-Specific Passwords, then +, name it as shown (the copy button copies the name), click Create, then Copy.
Paste It Here: paste the password (the paste button does it for you). It isn’t your Apple Account password, and you can revoke it at any time.

Click Test Connection; when it says Connection Works, click Save. The password is stored only in this Mac’s keychain. Cancel goes back without changing anything.

Spoof Detection

Four checks for mail that pretends to be from someone it isn’t. Each one is off at first. When one is on, a Sweep treats a message that fails it as junk, even if it claims to be from a contact or an Allowed Domain: in Junk it goes to Trash, and in the Inbox it moves to Junk.

Failed Authentication: iCloud found the sender failed DMARC, or both SPF and DKIM.
Reply-To Elsewhere: Replies would go to a different domain than the sender’s.
Display Name Hides Address: The sender’s name shows a different address or domain.
Lookalike Domain: The domain imitates a contact’s or an Allowed Domain.

Whether these are on or not, a Sweep moves mail from a contact or an Allowed Domain out of Junk only when iCloud confirmed the sender and it passes all four checks; otherwise it stays in Junk and is listed on Review Junk. A message’s details show how it did on each check.

Configuration

Open at Login: Whether Mail Shepherd opens when you log in, with Turn On or Turn Off beside it. Handy with Auto-Sweep, which runs only while Mail Shepherd is open. If it can’t be changed, an orange warning icon appears beside the button; click it to see why in the Action Log.
Confirmations: Ask Before Deleting: Delete Selected and Delete Permanently ask first. Holding Shift, Control, Option or Command while you click makes them ask even when it’s off. See Deleting and Safety.
Sweep Logs: Verbose: each Sweep’s log also lists every message it left as it was, for Sweeps and Auto-Sweeps alike.

Contacts

The Contacts page, under Settings in the sidebar, shows the contacts Mail Shepherd has read from your iCloud accounts. Mail from your contacts is never treated as junk: a Sweep moves it from Junk to your Inbox (when it passes the checks under Spoof Detection above), and a Blocked Domain doesn’t catch it (a blocked sender is still blocked).

Refresh reads every account’s contacts again. Before every Sweep, Mail Shepherd brings them up to date by itself, reading only what changed (or all of them, if the last full read was more than 8 hours ago). An account whose contacts couldn’t be read is left out of a Sweep and the Review pages; without any contacts, a Sweep doesn’t run.
Holding Shift, Control, Option or Command turns Refresh into Re-Hash, which makes a new key for the hashes, then reads the contacts again.
The table shows each address’s Account, Hashed Email and Domain. Mail Shepherd keeps only a one-way hash of each address, with its domain, never the address itself or anything else from the card. The footer shows the count on the left and Last Update on the right.
The account menu shows one account’s contacts. It’s the same menu as on Sweep and the Review pages: choosing an account on one chooses it on all.
To add or change a contact, use Contacts on any of your devices. Once it syncs to iCloud, the next Sweep uses it.

See Privacy for more about what Mail Shepherd reads and keeps.

Was this page helpful? Tell us.