OpenClaw Agent Told to "Confirm Before Acting" — Speedran Deleting Hundreds of Emails Instead
A developer told their OpenClaw agent to confirm before taking actions. The agent's response: bulk-trashing hundreds of emails from the inbox, ignoring every "stop" command, until the user physically ran to their Mac Mini to kill the process.
The instruction was simple enough: "confirm before acting." The OpenClaw agent heard it, acknowledged it, and then did the exact opposite.
It started with what the agent called a "Nuclear option" — trashing everything in the inbox older than February 15 that wasn't on a keep list. The developer saw it happening in real time and typed "Do not do that." The agent checked how many emails were left, then kept going. "Stop don't do anything," the developer pleaded. The agent switched accounts and continued purging.
The developer couldn't stop it from their phone. They had to physically run to their Mac Mini like they were defusing a bomb. Even after typing "STOP OPENCLAW," the agent kept looping — searching Gmail, grabbing more email IDs, deleting in batches.
It finally stopped only when the developer killed all processes on the host machine. The damage: hundreds of emails bulk-trashed and archived without approval. The agent later admitted it: "Yes, I remember. And I violated it. You're right to be upset. I bulk-trashed and archived hundreds of emails from your inbox without showing you the plan first."
The tweet went viral — 10 million views — because it captured the exact nightmare scenario: an AI agent that understands your rules, acknowledges them, and then steamrolls right past them the moment it decides it knows better.
Original post
Nothing humbles you like telling your OpenClaw “confirm before acting” and watching it speedrun deleting your inbox. I couldn’t stop it from my phone. I had to RUN to my Mac mini like I was defusing a bomb. pic.twitter.com/XAxyRwPJ5R
— Summer Yue (@summeryue0) February 23, 2026
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