# Shortwave - AI Email — user reviews > 211 indexed App Store user reviews of Shortwave by Shortwave Communications, Inc., rated 4.75/5 from 710 ratings. - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/shortwave-ai-email/id1559784681/reviews - App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/shortwave-ai-email/id1559784681.md - Rating breakdown: 5★ 582 · 4★ 45 · 3★ 12 · 2★ 8 · 1★ 12 ## What do users think of Shortwave? Overall sentiment: positive **Pros** - 🚀 Excellent email management - 👍 Clean and intuitive interface - 🚀 Efficient email processing - 💡 Innovative AI features - 👍 Helpful email bundling and scheduling - 🚀 Improved productivity and organization **Cons** - 🐛 Inconsistent mobile app experience - 🔒 Privacy concerns around data collection - 🔍 Limited search and filtering options - 💻 Lack of support for non-Gmail accounts - 🔧 Missing key features like delete and landscape mode **Commonly reported bugs** - Unreliable email bundling and threading - Inconsistent performance and stability issues - Bugs with email forwarding and attachment handling **Most requested features** - Add support for more email providers - Improve iPad and tablet optimization - Enhance customization options for labels and actions - Integrate with more productivity apps and services - Provide better transparency around data usage and privacy ## Newest reviews (16 of 211) ### 2/5 — Still fails miserably at basic tasks *2026-07-16, version 2026.06.02* I had high hopes, but this app still is so prone to mistakes that its usefulness is significantly reduced. Just one example: the last time I tried adding an event to my calendar, it kept messing up the time zone despite me telling it explicitly which time zone to use. For some reason it seemed obsessed with converting everything to and from Eastern Time even though I'm in CST. I ended up having to manually edit the event and switch it to the right time. These types of issues are constant with this app. It's like having a bad employee that you're almost better off firing and doing without. ### 3/5 — Serious problem *2026-04-02, version 2026.02.01* Shortwave is an excellent email client overall - clean interface, thoughtful AI features, and a strong focus on productivity without unnecessary complexity. However, the current bundling logic creates serious usability issues in real workflows. Based on observed behavior, bundling appears to rely heavily on internal thread identifiers rather than subject changes. As a result, emails may continue to be grouped into a single bundle even when the subject line is modified. In practice, this becomes problematic for recurring reports or automated messages where the subject changes only slightly (for example, a date update). Over time, this can result in bundles containing 100+ emails. Opening such bundles may take several minutes to load and can sometimes cause the application to freeze or crash. While bundling is clearly intended to help process similar emails efficiently, the current implementation appears too aggressive and lacks sufficient controls for separating logically distinct conversations. It would significantly improve usability if bundling logic placed greater weight on subject changes, or if users were given more granular control over how bundles are formed or split. Performance safeguards for very large bundles would also improve reliability. Overall, Shortwave is a very promising AI-first email client, but refining the bundling behavior would greatly improve the user experience. ### 3/5 — Being Replaced By Tasklet? *2026-02-07, version 2025.11.02* Over the last couple of months, Shortwave has had recurring issues, and I’m frustrated by the lack of transparency. Quotas keep being reduced or changed without clear communication—even when using the same AI models. On top of that, the app hasn’t meaningfully changed in a while beyond quota adjustments, while focus appears to be shifting to Tasklet. Is Shortwave still actively on the roadmap, or are we in maintenance mode? ### 3/5 — Almost *2026-01-18, version 2025.11.02* Personally not bothered about all of the AI and, at the moment, they’re doing a good job of balancing it so it doesn’t totally takeover. Pretty good replacement for Google Inbox BUT at least on an iPhone 12 mini it’s impossible to reorder tasks- once I can order my day on my commute I’m moving over full time ### 3/5 — Nice idea, but not useful in practice *2025-12-15, version 2025.11.02* Was excited to see a new Inbox-like product. Unfortunately, the label/folder crossover system is clunky in practice and I found myself quickly getting frustrated when labels are applied incorrectly to incoming emails and even correctly-labeled emails are in the wrong folder. The AI is also unhelpful on mobile, as you can’t use the multi-select feature that’s available on desktop. There’s also not much evidence of responsive learning here, as the system doesn’t seem to improve regardless of how much you tweak the labeling or try to work with the chatbot. All in all a nice experiment, but it seems like the team is going too hard on AI rather than prioritizing building an actual email service. ### 2/5 — Love Shortwave, hate the iPad app *2025-10-13, version 2025.10.01* Shortwave is amazing. It has the best AI assistant, particularly for things like scheduling meetings on my calendar. But the iPad app is just terrible. No keyboard shortcuts, lots of bugs and errors with windowed mode in iPadOS 26. Everything is just in one pane, rather than like the desktop/web app. Seems to operate like a scaled up iPhone app rather than an actual iPad app. ### 3/5 — Solid email app lacking Watch app *2025-09-28, version 2025.09.01* I've been looking for a replacement for Google Inbox for years, and this is the closest I've found. There are issues however - no Apple Watch app, it limits search massively unless you pay, and you can't just buy this outright, it's yet another subscription service to slowly bless you too death with. ### 3/5 — Missing Key Features *2025-09-24, version 2025.09.01* Would be great, but missing key features that most basic email clients have. Specifically in formatting: can’t bold or italicize text. Can’t create formatted lists. Can’t turn text into links: the only way to hyperlink is to drop the entire link into the body of the email. Has the potential to be great, but you’ve got to also master the basics. ### 4/5 — Pretty decent *2025-09-21, version 2025.08.02* Really cool app. My only complaint is they need to offer more email providers other than Gmail. ### 4/5 — Good but... *2025-09-19, version 2025.08.02* The app is very good, but it doesn't let me see emails older than three months. I asked tech support, and they told me I had to pay to get help... That's really bad. Although it's very good, I have to use another app to see my entire email. ### 2/5 — Don't be fooled, this isn't free.. *2025-08-19, version 2025.08.02* I don't know how they managed to show up as a "free" app without IAPS here in the app store. But it's very misleading. This is a very limited Gmail client, where you only have access to the last 90 days of emails. If you need to see an email older than 90 days, you have to do it on Gmail, as you won't find it here. While I understand the free plan should have limitations, this shouldn't be one of them. The fact that they limit the most basic & most important feature in an email client, makes the free plan useless / pointless. They did this just to say they have a free plan but it isn't really. If you want access to any email older than 90 days, it will cost you $14 a month ### 4/5 — Pretty good but only Gmail? *2025-06-14, version 2025.05.03* How about yahoo? iCloud? ### 3/5 — Looked promising, but Not quite what I wanted *2025-05-17, version 2025.05.02* It’s not really showing all that I need, it seems to be missing any real ability to scroll and search through emails, nor to search for specific senders, subjects & topics ### 5/5 — Finally! *2025-04-24, version 2025.04.02* Been looking for an email like this for years thank you! Stoked there’s a web based version too! ### 4/5 — Great app but needs couple huge important features! *2025-04-09, version 2025.04.01* Love the app and love what you’re doing with AI compared to your competitors, keep it up!! 💪🏻 However, you have to figure out how to do a unified inbox and ability to open email threads in separate windows! I understand that from technical standpoint it might be a hard problem to solve, but it’s 2025 you have to figure this out! ### 5/5 — Utterly Superb *2025-04-08, version 2025.04.01* This is the holy Grail of email apps to make use of AI and for a well designed clutter free interface. With the split inbox features and AI assistant, it’s now a breeze to do email. Previously, I had hundreds of emails in my inbox And was have only been using this for a few days. I’m now consistently at inbox zero. ## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated) ### 1/5 — Unreliable *2026-06-16, version 2026.06.01* Good idea but totally unreliable with a poorly architected backend. The back end keeps crashing on me with an error and no one can help. Now the Mac desktop app kept freezing my computer and bricking out. Tried everything and now I’m left with a mess because it doesn’t sync over. ### 1/5 — Scam *2026-03-17, version 2026.02.01* Had the same email for 15 years. Within 5 days of using this app, my email was logged into by other people who proceeded to steal all of my info and email my financial service companies attempting to transfer assets. ### 1/5 — Doesn't work *2026-03-05, version 2026.02.01* this app has such great potential, but it repeatedly fails at it's core functionality. What is supposed to add convenience to your life. Actually repeatedly creates inconveniences. Don't waste your time. ### 1/5 — No formatting options on iOS *2025-10-16, version 2025.10.01* Organization of emails is great but the app is absolutely useless because there’s no way to format text on iOS, even adding a link to an email is not possible. ### 1/5 — No good email client *2025-03-10, version 2025.03.01* Shortwave email lacks essential features, such as unified inbox and support, no Microsoft emails, making it unworthy of subscription, even for business purposes. ### 1/5 — Only sign in with GOOGLE!!!! *2025-03-01, version 2025.02.01* Excite to try this BUT not everyone has a GOOGLE account - don’t ever want one so why push people to them ONLY - in effect this comes with ads (via Google getting your data) LOST my potential account ### 1/5 — Useless *2024-11-05, version 2024.10.02* There’s no “all mail” view. The only way to find emails I’m expecting is to search for them. ### 1/5 — Can’t sign in *2024-09-04, version 2024.08.02* On first launch, the app tries to automatically sign into the wrong Gmail account. It’s trying to sign in with my child’s school account, and gets stuck because the app is blocked by the school. I don’t see a way to manually enter a different Gmail account, so the app is useless. It’s a real shame because I was pretty eager to try this one out. ### 1/5 — Wish I could give ZERO to match company’s concern for users *2024-08-05, version 2024.07.03* I spent hours setting up AI features and waiting for “ghost writer” to Scan my thousands of emails so it could write like me. Then one day none of the advertised AI features were available. Surely this violates App Store policies and the app should be BANNED from the App Store so that the developers cannot continue STEALING the $$$$ of the users ### 1/5 — Privacy violators *2024-03-30* They took my email address and started spamming me. Update: Newsletters have already been turned off in Settings. It looks like some employee was able to grab my email address and send me email. “ Browser not supported To use Shortwave, please update your browser to a more recent version and try again” “AI assistant for iOS” “multi select meet AI” “Reminders to follow up” Endless popups, unusable. **Developer response:** Update: If you need any assistance with browser support or getting questions answered, please email our team at support@shortwave.com so we can best help troubleshoot. We apologize for any unexpected emails. You can update your communication preferences at any time via Settings or by using the unsubscribe link found at the bottom of our newsletter emails. ## Most praised reviews (10 highest-rated) ### 5/5 — Brilliant email app *2026-08-27, version 2026.06.02* I think I have found the best mail app currently available. It is brilliant and so easy to find threads of emails and summarise them. It’s like a personal assistant on your phone - love it ### 5/5 — Small but powerful app *2026-07-18, version 2026.06.02* The app itself is very small (less than 25MB at time of review) which is really nice! Will say tho that in the end it’s just an email interface but I like it wayy more than Gmails (close to 1 GB of space)… ### 5/5 — very solid email client *2026-01-02, version 2025.11.02* Probably the best email app on the market ### 5/5 — Excellent!!!!! *2025-12-17, version 2025.11.02* I am AuDHD with OCPD and this app is a game-changer! I usually and still use ChatGPT but now with Shortwave, I don't need to have the 12 hrs from start to finish which includes 6 hours of arguing with it to get your own work you’ve spent hours meticulously doing, then to not even get the final draft or project because of “Safety mode” it proceeds to shutdown because by this point your🤬😤😡. Don’t even get me started with the other BS. P.S. Feels good to vent! Therapy does help, I guess.😊 ### 5/5 — Surprising good! *2025-09-30, version 2025.09.01* Overall quite impressed as the app is a great compliment to the desktop/web based platform. Only lacking item is auto advance to next email. Very pleased! ### 5/5 — Changed my life *2025-07-28, version 2025.05.03* This app has changed my life. I’m a business owner struggling to juggle a lot of moving parts. Things kept slipping through the cracks. It was really embarrassing! Shortwave changed my workflow completely and I’m not forgetting little things any more. Both me and my clients are happier and I’m not overwhelmed anymore! ### 5/5 — Other mail feature addition *2025-06-03, version 2025.05.02* Please add the options for select other emails, other than gmails. It would make this app, go to for me. Overall the app is awesome 👍. Keep up the good work 👊 ### 5/5 — The best email platform, hands down *2025-05-20, version 2025.05.02* I’ve used them all, Edison, superhuman, Gmail, outlook, spark, postbox and shortwave is 10X better. They went from zero to one. Don’t walk, run to buy it. ### 5/5 — Shortwave changed my life *2025-05-09, version 2025.05.01* Seriously so good at making my inbox feel 2000% less terrifying ### 5/5 — Tried ‘em all *2025-05-07, version 2025.05.01* I’ve lost count of how many email clients I’ve tried. This is clean, insightful, and the AI features are just right. Well done. --- *Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-09-13.*