Shortwave

Overview

Shortwave rebuilds the Gmail experience around an AI assistant that has real access to your mailbox. You can ask it to find a thread by description rather than keyword, summarise a long chain, draft a reply in your style, or pull the relevant history on a contact before you write to them — and because it indexes your mail semantically, the search holds up when you cannot remember the exact words. It bundles the modern hygiene features too: bundled inboxes, scheduled send, snooze. Against Superhuman it is cheaper and its AI is more capable; against plain Gmail it is a clear upgrade if you live in your inbox. The catches: it is Gmail-only, so Outlook and everything else are excluded. Handing a third party deep semantic access to your entire mail archive is a real privacy decision, not a footnote, and some employers will refuse it. The AI features are largely paid, and the free tier mostly exists to show you the client.

Features

Pros & cons

Who Shortwave is for

Shortwave is built for people working with email tools. Its free plan makes it easy to evaluate before paying, which suits both individuals and growing teams. Users most often highlight the most genuinely capable ai assistant of any mainstream email client.

How Shortwave compares in AI Email Tools

Within email tools, the closest alternatives to Shortwave are Gmelius, Superhuman, Missive — it is worth comparing them side by side on price and the specific features you need before deciding.

Shortwave pricing

Shortwave offers a free plan with paid upgrades. You can start for free and pay only when you need higher limits, advanced features or team seats. See the full Shortwave pricing breakdown →

Shortwave FAQ

The verdict

Shortwave is a email tools option, best known for the most genuinely capable ai assistant of any mainstream email client. The main trade-off is that gmail only — no outlook or imap. Start on the free plan and compare it against the alternatives below before committing.