AI email assistant review
Shortwave review
Best for: Gmail or Google Workspace users who want an AI-first replacement client, especially for semantic search across email history, summaries, personalized writing, inbox-zero organization, and team email collaboration.
Our review
The full take on Shortwave
Shortwave is a full email client for Gmail and Google Workspace with a built-in AI assistant for inbox organization, semantic search, summaries, drafting, calendar work, and AI filters. It is best suited to users willing to replace the Gmail interface to get deep AI search and structured inbox workflows; the main limitations are the lack of direct Microsoft 365 / Exchange support, cloud processing of mailbox data, and paid-plan pricing for advanced features.
Features and fit
What Shortwave does
conversational email assistant; natural-language search and answers over email history; thread and multi-email summaries; data extraction and translation; personalized drafting, instant replies, draft rewriting, and predictive autocomplete; inbox organization suggestions; natural-language AI filters; calendar scheduling; saved prompts and memories; web browsing and app integrations, including custom MCP servers on eligible plans.
Product type
AI-native email client and Gmail interface replacement, available on web, Mac, Windows, iOS, and Android.
Email and platform support
Native sign-in requires Gmail or Google Workspace. Yahoo, iCloud, Fastmail, Zoho, and some other providers can be bridged through Gmail forwarding plus SMTP "Send mail as." Outlook.com can be forwarded but cannot send from the Outlook address through this method; Microsoft 365 / Exchange is not supported.
Pricing
Plans and cost
Free; Pro is $18/month or $14/month when billed annually; Business is $30/seat/month or $24/seat/month annually; Premier is $45/seat/month or $36/seat/month annually; Max is $120/seat/month or $100/seat/month annually. Prices are USD and were verified from the current official pricing-page bundle on 2026-08-09.
Free plan or trial
The Free plan includes basic intelligence, a limited AI quota, 90 days of standard and AI-search history, a 15-thread maximum per AI search, basic inbox settings, and a "Sent with Shortwave" signature. Paid plans start with a 14-day free trial.
Privacy and security
What happens to your email data
Shortwave says it stores data in Google Cloud, encrypts stored data with AES-256 and data in transit with TLS 1.2+, has CASA Tier 2 verification with annual audits, and does not use customer data to train third-party LLMs. It lists Google Cloud, OpenAI, Anthropic, and Pinecone as subprocessors and states that the majority of AI workloads use open-source models on hardware it controls. These are vendor claims, not independently audited in this dossier.
Security certifications and data-handling commitments are attributed to the vendor unless the supporting audit artifact was independently reviewed.
Independent signal
What users are saying
The only clearly on-topic current community thread found had one user combining Shortwave and Superhuman because neither alone gave them enough confidence in filing, while commenters emphasized human review for important mail. A current competitor review praises Shortwave's AI search and organization but criticizes pricing, Gmail-only support, and the cloud-indexing tradeoff.
Weak. The social engine returned no reliable named-product cluster; its highest-ranked TikTok, Reddit, Hacker News, Instagram, and GitHub items were unrelated despite explicit “Shortwave AI email” disambiguation, so they must not be used as product evidence.
2026-07-10 through 2026-08-09
The US App Store lists Shortwave Communications, Inc. as developer, shows the current iOS app, and reports 4.8 from 705 ratings.
Confirms active distribution and developer identity; rating is volatile and should be dated if published.
Google Play lists the Android app, Gmail / Workspace-only access, 50K+ downloads, and a 4.4 rating from about 1.07K reviews.
Confirms active Android distribution and the provider limitation; store metrics are volatile.
A recent competitor-authored review describes AI search, bundles, and personalized writing as strengths while flagging price, Gmail-only support, and cloud mailbox indexing. The author clearly discloses that CMDK competes with Shortwave.
Useful current hands-on detail, but commercial bias requires attribution and corroboration.
A hands-on reviewer tested Shortwave across multiple Gmail accounts and described its opinionated inbox-zero workflow, cross-platform apps, and AI-assisted triage. Clean Email is itself an inbox-management vendor.
Independent usage detail with a disclosed category conflict; do not treat as neutral consensus.
Zapier's product test found Shortwave more customizable than Superhuman and said its AI was more tightly tuned to inbox workflows, including natural-language search, organization, and AI filters.
Detailed comparative testing from a recognizable automation publisher, although outside the 30-day window.
A recent r/productivity poster said they use both Shortwave and Superhuman because each handles filing differently; commenters repeatedly cautioned against unsupervised archiving of important mail.
Current but low-volume community evidence; the concern is category-wide rather than a proven Shortwave failure.
Limitations
What to know before choosing Shortwave
- Shortwave is Gmail-centric. Non-Gmail support is a forwarding workaround, and Microsoft 365 / Exchange is explicitly unsupported.
- Deep AI search requires cloud mailbox processing. Shortwave discloses Google Cloud, OpenAI, Anthropic, and Pinecone as subprocessors; this may fail some security reviews even though the company publishes security controls.
- The Free plan is constrained by a 90-day history limit, 15-thread AI-search cap, and a required “Sent with Shortwave” signature.
- Paid prices and model assignments can change quickly. Re-check the official pricing page immediately before publication.
- Do not imply that Shortwave itself provides unattended 24/7 reply automation. Its documentation assigns that use case to sister product Tasklet; Shortwave provides AI filters and review-oriented inbox actions.
- Recent independent reviews from CMDK and Clean Email come from competing products. Their opinions should be attributed and not treated as neutral consensus.
- The last-30-days run produced substantial off-topic noise because “Shortwave” also means radio. SEO pages and future monitoring should always use “Shortwave AI email,” “Shortwave email app,” or similar anchors.
- No public repository for the production Shortwave client was located. The shortwave GitHub organization has public libraries, but none was verified as the product's source code; do not call the client open source.
Evidence
Sources behind this review
Product facts come from current first-party pages. Independent and community sources are used for context—not as proof of every product claim.
Current positioning is an AI email agent that can organize, schedule, write, and search from a prompt.
The AI Assistant can organize inboxes, write and revise email, search and analyze messages, manage calendars, use memories, connect tools, and apply AI filters.
Shortwave supports natural-language AI filters that can label, archive, delete, star, mark important, and update todos.
Custom remote and local MCP integrations are supported, with plan, platform, protocol, and tool-count limitations.
Native access requires Gmail / Google Workspace; other providers need forwarding through Gmail, and Microsoft 365 / Exchange is unsupported.
Current plans are Free, Pro, Business, Premier, and Max, with a 14-day trial and the monthly / annual prices recorded above.
Vendor security claims include CASA Tier 2, Google Cloud storage, AES-256 at rest, TLS 1.2+ in transit, named subprocessors, and no third-party LLM training.
The latest dated changelog entry located upgrades paid intelligence tiers to Claude Sonnet and Opus 4.6.
Shortwave identifies Tasklet as its sister product for 24/7 automation and 3,000+ integrations; this should not be conflated with Shortwave's own AI filters.