iCloud Mail Cleanup & Privacy

iCloud Mail Cleanup recommendations are based on the category and existing metadata of your emails stored in iCloud. This metadata doesn’t include the body content of your emails.
 

iCloud Mail Cleanup is designed to protect your information and enable you to choose what you share.


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  • iCloud Mail Cleanup recommendations help you keep your inbox clean and free up storage.
  • Recommendations are based on the category and existing metadata of your emails stored in iCloud, such as email header information.
  • You can turn off iCloud Mail Cleanup in Settings at any time.

iCloud Mail Cleanup gives you recommendations to help you keep your inbox clean and free up storage. Recommendations are, in part, based on the email category. When accessing your iCloud emails in the Mail app on iOS, categorisation processing occurs entirely on device. For iCloud Mail Cleanup, Apple processes that categorisation data, along with other iCloud email metadata stored in iCloud, to recommend taking certain actions, such as deleting old promotions, unsubscribing from mailing lists and more. If you access iCloud Mail on iCloud.com, Apple processes certain email metadata, such as email header information, in order to both categorise iCloud emails and serve Cleanup recommendations.

You have the ability to turn off iCloud Mail Cleanup on iOS and iCloud.com at any time in Settings.

Applicable Legal Basis for Processing Personal Data

We process your personal data on iCloud.com generally for performance of your contract with Apple, as necessary to provide the service and to comply with our legal obligations. Where consent is the appropriate legal basis, we seek it in accordance with applicable law.

Retention

Apple retains personal data only for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes for which it was collected, including as described in this notice and in accordance with Apple’s Privacy Policy, or as required by law. When assessing retention periods, we first carefully examine whether it is necessary to retain the personal data collected and, if retention is required, work to retain the personal data for the shortest legal period permissible under law.

At all times, information collected by Apple will be treated in accordance with Apple’s Privacy Policy, which can be found at www.apple.com/uk/privacy.

Published Date: September 15, 2025