I re-worked the script to use one regex and one call to delete_message() and now it runs without hanging. (I also added some more Subject line patterns to filter out.) 
#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;
use Email::Delete qw(delete_message);

my @subject_list = (
  '^DELIVERY FAILURE.*$' ,
  '^Delivery Notification: Delivery has failed' ,
  '^Delivery Status Notification.*$' ,
  '^Mail delivery failed: returning message to sender' ,
  '^Mail delivery failed: returning message to sender' ,
  '^Message you sent blocked by our bulk email filter' ,
  '^Returned mail: see transcript for deta.*' ,
  '^Returned mail: see transcript for details' ,
  '^Undeliverable:.*$' ,
  '^Undelivered Mail Returned to Sender$' ,
  '^Undelivered Mail Returned to Sender' ,
  '^failure notice$' ,
  'failure notice' ,
);

{
    local $" = '|';
    print "@subject_list" , "\n";

    delete_message from     => '/home/chad/Mailbox',
                   matching => sub {
                       my $message = shift;
                       local $" = '|';
                       $message->header('Subject') =~ m/"@subject_list
+"/;
    };
}

[download]

In reply to Re: Email::Delete trouble. by superfrink
in thread Email::Delete trouble. by superfrink

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.