Shortwave
4.3
Shortwave is an email client built around AI: search by meaning rather than keywords, summaries of long threads, and automatic triage of the inbox. It is aimed at people whose inbox is a workload rather than a utility.
- Commercial use OK
- Enterprise contract
- Pricing
- $30/mo
- Free tier
- No
- Commercial use
- Permitted
- Japanese UI
- Not confirmed
- Enterprise contract
- Available
What it is good for
- Inboxes large enough that search is the main interaction
- Finding a message you remember the content of, not the words
- Summarising long threads before replying
- Automating triage rules that are hard to express as filters
Strengths and trade-offs
Strengths
- Semantic search genuinely finds what keyword search misses
- Thread summaries save re-reading long chains
- Triage handles cases ordinary filters cannot express
- Fast client independent of the AI features
Trade-offs
- Granting an AI client full mailbox access is a real decision
- Priced well above standard email clients
- Only worth it if email is genuinely a bottleneck
Editors' review
Search that works on meaning, which is what you actually remember
The thing you remember about an old email is what it was about, not the words it used. Keyword search fails exactly there, and semantic search is the first improvement to email search in a long time that changes behaviour.
Thread summaries are the second time-saver. A forty-message chain you have been added to is a cost, and reading a summary before replying removes most of it.
It needs full mailbox access to do any of this, which deserves consideration rather than a click-through. And the price only makes sense if email is genuinely where your time goes.
Verdict
Worth it for people whose inbox is a workload. Think about the access question first.
Compiled from official documentation and public sources, with our own editorial judgement. We do not publish figures we cannot source.