Automation sending e-mails in infinite loop

[Aline_v]

Hi, community!

Please, I need help to understand what happened with an automation that I messed up and was sending e-mails in an infinity looping even after it was deleted from the base.
It was initially built with "At schedule time" trigger and had two steps: 
1 - Find records matching one condition: Where field A contains Yes

2 - Send an e-mail to the e-mail found in the previous step

After I tested, I realized that I actually needed to insert the Send an e-mail step inside a Repeating group. The problem is I forgot to update the data that should be used in this step, so it kept sending e-mails to everyone that matches the condition in the first step. I fixed that changing data to Current item data in all fields in the e-mail step but it didn't work and then, I deleted the automation and it still kept sending e-mails.

Now, it seems to have stoped, but I'd like to understand what happened here so if something similar happens in the future. Anyone with patience to explain how something deleted was still working and if is there any way to stop it?

[Aline_v · Accepted solution]

Just an update in case anyone  else is interested in that. Airtable Support team said "it's definitely possible that there was an unintended change in either your formula field or e-mail field that could cause a mass trigger to this automation. To prevent something similar from happening in the future, you can set up field editing permissions to control which collaborators are editing these fields."