Mail Shepherd Privacy Policy.

Who we are

Mail Shepherd is made by Take66 Software, operated by Philip Coats. Questions about this policy or your information: mailshepherd-support@take66.ai.

This policy covers Mail Shepherd 3.0 from the Mac App Store and from take66.ai. They’re the same app; the take66.ai edition also checks for updates (see Internet use).

What Mail Shepherd reads

• Your mail: you add each account’s address with an app password you create with your provider (Apple, Google, Yahoo, AOL or Fastmail), or, for another IMAP service, the server and password your provider gives you. Mail Shepherd signs in to that account’s own mail server and reads only these message headers in your Inbox, Junk (Spam in Gmail) and Trash: sender, Reply-To, subject, sent and received dates, Message-ID, the read and junk flags, your mail provider’s own sender-authentication results (for Spoof Detection, which is off unless you turn it on) and mailing-list headers. It never downloads message bodies or attachments, and it doesn’t use or control the Mail app.
• Your Sent Mail, if you choose it: when People I’ve Written To (Sent Mail) is one of an account’s Known Senders sources, Mail Shepherd reads only the To and Cc addresses, subject and reply header of the messages in its Sent mailbox, to recognize people you’ve written to. As with contacts, it keeps only each address’s domain and a one-way hash of the address, never the address itself or anything else from the message.
• Your contacts (iCloud and Fastmail accounts): it reads your contacts’ email addresses from Apple’s iCloud Contacts server or Fastmail’s contacts server, only so their mail is never treated as junk. It keeps only each address’s domain and a one-way hash of the address (made with a key kept in your keychain), never the address itself, names or anything else from the card.
• Mail’s Blocked Sender List, if you link it: the senders you blocked in the Mail app, read from Mail’s own file on your Mac once you choose it in Settings. Mail Shepherd only reads the file; it never changes it.

What it changes

Mail Shepherd changes your mail only when you click Sweep or another action, or when an Auto-Sweep you turned on runs. A Sweep marks mail read, junk or not junk and moves it between your Inbox, Junk and Trash, following the senders and domains you block or allow. It deletes mail only when you ask it to: the messages you choose with Delete Selected or Delete Permanently and, for an account where you turn on Empty Trash during Sweep (off unless you turn it on), the blocked or junk mail a Sweep finds in Trash, once the time you chose has passed. Deleted mail is deleted permanently and can’t be recovered. It never sends mail and never changes your contacts. Changes are made on your mail provider’s servers, so they appear on all your devices, and every one is recorded in the Action Log.

What it keeps on your Mac

• Your app passwords, in your Mac’s keychain (this device only).
• The hashes and domains of your contacts and of the people you’ve written to, your lists (Blocked Senders, Blocked Domains, Allowed Domains and the senders from Mail’s Blocked Sender List, if linked), each account’s settings, and when each message waiting to be emptied from Trash was found.
• A local Action Log of every change and problem: message identifiers, senders, subjects, dates, actions and mailbox names (never bodies or attachments), Sweep statistics and any crash reports macOS gives Mail Shepherd. It’s kept 4 weeks unless you clear it sooner.
• Sweep Logs: what each Sweep did, the newest 500, unless you clear them.

None of this is uploaded. You can remove an account (its password and contacts go with it) and clear the logs in the app. Uninstalling the app alone may leave its logs and settings on your Mac.

Internet use

• Apple’s iCloud servers (iCloud accounts): Mail Shepherd connects to iCloud Mail (imap.mail.me.com, over TLS) and iCloud Contacts (contacts.icloud.com, over HTTPS) with your address and app-specific password. Your password is sent only to Apple.
• Google’s Gmail server (Gmail accounts): Mail Shepherd connects to Gmail (imap.gmail.com, over TLS) with your address and Google app password. Your password is sent only to Google.
• Yahoo’s and AOL’s servers (Yahoo and AOL accounts): imap.mail.yahoo.com and imap.aol.com, over TLS, with your address and app password, sent only to them.
• Your own IMAP server (Other accounts): the server you enter, over TLS, with the username and password you enter, sent only to that server. When you add a Gmail account at your own domain (Google Workspace), your Mac’s standard DNS lookup checks which server handles mail for that domain.
• Everything is encrypted in transit.
• take66.ai edition only: it asks take66.ai which build is current, when it opens and when you choose Check for Updates. The request contains nothing about you or your mail; like any web request, it carries your IP address and standard app and macOS version details.
• Nothing else: no other server receives anything from Mail Shepherd. Mail Shepherd Help opens in your web browser, at take66.ai.

Support

On the Get Support page, the support address opens a new email in your email app to mailshepherd-support@take66.ai with your Mail Shepherd and macOS versions filled in. If you choose, Create Support File… saves one file with the last 7 days of Mail Shepherd’s logs (the senders and subjects of mail it changed or kept in Junk, and, if Verbose was on, of the mail it left alone; your accounts’ addresses and settings; your versions) where you choose, and Email Support… attaches that file to a new email. The file never contains passwords, message contents or your contacts, and it’s sent only if you send it. Nothing is sent unless you review it and send it yourself. When you email us, we receive what you send and use it only to help you. Please don’t send passwords, verification codes or message contents. Ask us at any time to delete your support correspondence.

Beta requests on take66.ai

The take66.ai edition is by invitation. When you request it on the Mail Shepherd page, we store:

• The name and email address you enter, your optional reason, and whether you asked for release news.
• When you requested, confirmed your address, and were approved or declined.
• Your approximate location (city, region and country), looked up from your IP address through ipapi.co, to review requests. Your IP address itself isn’t stored; we keep only a one-way coded fragment of it to limit repeated requests.
• Your browser’s user-agent string.
• Each time your download link is used: the date, the file and the approximate location.

The form uses Cloudflare Turnstile to block automated requests, so Cloudflare receives information from your browser under its own privacy policy. Requests are stored in Microsoft Azure, and our emails (address confirmation and your download link) are sent through Azure Communication Services with open and click tracking turned off. Requests that are never confirmed are removed after about three days. We use these details only to review requests and send download links, plus release news if you asked for it. Nothing is shared or sold. To have your details removed, email mailshepherd-support@take66.ai.

Children

Mail Shepherd isn’t directed at children, and we don’t knowingly collect information from children. If you believe a child has sent us information, email us and we’ll delete it.

Changes to this policy

If we change how Mail Shepherd handles information, we’ll update this page and its effective date before the change takes effect.