Mail Housekeeper reads headers, groups every sender by the company behind it, and asks you for one decision per company. Then it works through the mailbox in waves, checks every move against the server, and comes back each night to keep things in order. Nothing is deleted at any point.
One afternoon for most mailboxes. The housekeeper does the lifting; you make the calls.
Pick your provider and paste an app password: a separate key your provider issues for one app, which you can revoke at any moment without touching your real password. We test the sign-in, seal the password with AES-256-GCM, and start the free scan. The scan reads message headers only: who sent it, the subject, the date, whether it was opened, and the unsubscribe header. Nothing moves.
Every company on one page, biggest first, with a recommended pile already selected: Unsubscribe, Trim, Delete or Keep. Tap to change any of them. Protected senders default to Keep: anyone you have written to, people on Gmail or iCloud, banks, government, insurers, utilities and your own business tools. You can still override them, and each override teaches the defaults for your mailbox.
The cleanup applies your choices to the mail it can see, moves cleared mail into the Housekeeper hold folder inside your own mailbox, and checks every move against the server before it counts. Then the next wave appears with only the senders that are new to you. After the last wave, nightly upkeep keeps it that way for 30 days, longer with Keep it clean.
The same four colors you see on the review page. Whatever the pile, receipts stay and nothing is erased.
Your provider decides how much mail a program can see and how fast it can move. The housekeeper works with that instead of fighting it, and every wave only asks you about senders that are new to you.
Same mail system. Both show any program only the newest 10,000 messages per folder. Each wave clears part of that view, the view slides back to older mail, and the senders that are new to you wait for your decision. A twenty-year inbox takes several waves; the first one is the big one.
Deep clean. When the visible 10,000 are all mail you keep, the older mail underneath cannot be reached. The housekeeper parks your kept mail in a folder called Housekeeper keep, cleans the older layer, and moves everything back on its own once you have finished reviewing. Your inbox looks nearly empty for a while. Everything parked is logged and comes back, and if you disconnect in the middle your mail stays safe in Housekeeper keep.
No cap on what a program can see, so most Gmail mailboxes clear in one or two waves. Google throttles how fast mail can move, which sets the pace there. Personal accounts only; a work or school account may have app passwords turned off by its administrator.
No cap either, but Apple limits connections tightly, so a big mailbox takes longer per wave. The housekeeper keeps one polite connection per mailbox and reconnects on a schedule Apple is happy with.
Any mailbox that speaks IMAP over SSL works with its server name and port. Outlook.com and Microsoft 365 are not connected yet: they need a Microsoft sign-in flow rather than an app password.
Every move in every wave is checked against the server before it is logged as done. Yahoo in particular will answer OK to a move it did not make, so the housekeeper asks again before it believes it.
Replying to a spammer, even with an unsubscribe, tells them the address is live. So a checker runs on every sender in the Unsubscribe pile before the review page is even ready, and a sender has to pass all of it.
For the text check the housekeeper reads the first few kilobytes of one sample message per sender, once, and does not keep it. Everything else comes from headers.
Everything you clear goes to a folder called Housekeeper hold inside your own mailbox. Open it in any mail app and it is all there. In Mail Housekeeper, the Holding folder page shows who is in it and gives you two buttons.
One tap per sender. Its held mail moves back to the inbox, verified, and the sender's pile is set to Keep so the next pass leaves it alone. You can also just drag messages back in your mail app; the housekeeper notices.
When you are sure, type the count to confirm and the folder moves to your provider's Trash. From there your provider's own Trash timer applies (about 7 days at Yahoo and AOL, 30 at Gmail and iCloud) and you can still pull a message out until then. Mail Housekeeper itself never empties Trash. If you prefer, set a timer so held mail is emptied on its own after 30, 60 or 90 days.
Once the cleanup is done, what is left is mail you chose to keep. The housekeeper can file it into folders inside your own mailbox, under Housekeeper filed. You see the plan first: how many messages each folder would get, from whom, with example subject lines. Nothing moves until you press Organize my mail.
Receipts, invoices and payment confirmations.
Bills due, amounts due, autopay and statements from utilities, phone and insurance.
Order confirmations, shipping and delivery updates, tracking numbers.
Itineraries, boarding passes, hotel and rental reservations.
Sign-in alerts, verification codes, password and account notices.
Bank and card statements, deposits, transfers, payroll and tax forms.
Mail newer than 14 days stays in your inbox so you see it first. A receipt from this morning is right where you expect it; it is filed once it is older. You can pick 0, 7, 14 or 30 days. Each night, upkeep files what has aged past the cutoff.
Mail from people you write to, mail that looks like it came from a person, and anything you starred always stays in the inbox. So does mail from senders you are clearing. On the plan you can move any sender to another folder, or keep it in the inbox for good.
Mail newer than 48 hours is never moved or parked, whatever pile its sender is in, so today's mail stays where you are reading it. The cutoff is a per-mailbox setting; a later wave or the nightly pass picks the mail up once it is older than that.
Every run is logged by message id. Undo a run and its moves go back where they came from, verified against the server the same way they left. Your piles stay as they were unless you say otherwise, so a wrong decision costs a tap, not a message.
Connect a mailbox and see every sender grouped by company. Nothing moves until you say so.