Shortwave alternative: CatchTheMail
Shortwave is one of the most capable AI email apps available, with search, summaries and assistants built deeply into the client. This page covers the two questions that usually decide against it: which mailbox you are on, and how much of your mail you are willing to hand over.
Where Shortwave is strong
Shortwave is an AI-native email client. Its assistant can search across years of mail, pull context from many threads at once, summarise what happened while you were away and draft answers that reflect your own writing. Features such as bundles, splits and AI filters reorganise the inbox around how you actually work.
For someone whose work runs on Google mail and who wants an assistant with the whole archive in reach, that depth is genuinely hard to match by forwarding single messages. If you want to ask questions about your email history, that is Shortwave's territory, not ours.
Where CatchTheMail is different
The two products start from opposite ends. Shortwave gets more useful the more of your mailbox it can reach. CatchTheMail is built so that it can reach none of it.
You get a private forwarding address and nothing else changes. There is no app to install, no Google sign-in, no OAuth screen and no archive access. Whatever provider you use, including a company mail server that would never approve a third-party client, forwarding still works, because forwarding is a feature of email itself rather than of any one platform.
In exchange you accept a real limitation: we only ever see the single message you sent. We cannot connect it to a thread from last spring, and we cannot answer questions about mail you have not forwarded. Depth across your archive is exactly what you give up.
In daily use the difference is smaller than it sounds, because the messages that actually cost you money are rarely buried in the archive. They are the quote request, the contract question and the client who is quietly getting annoyed, and those arrive one at a time. Forwarding the two or three that matter each day is a habit most people build in a week, and it leaves the rest of your mail exactly where it was.
Provider, permission and price
Shortwave is priced per seat: $30 per seat per month on Business, $45 on Premier and $120 on Max, with a 14 day free trial. The tiers mostly differ in how much AI usage, search history and context each one allows.
CatchTheMail charges from $16.99 per month and the tiers differ only in how many messages you can analyse: 100 on Starter, 600 on Pro and 2000 on Team. There is no AI usage meter to reason about and no archive to grant access to.
If your employer or your client contracts make connecting a third-party client difficult, that constraint usually settles the comparison before price enters it at all.
Side by side
| Shortwave | CatchTheMail | |
|---|---|---|
| Mail provider | Built around Google mail | Any provider that can forward an email |
| Access model | Sign in and give the app access to your mail | No sign-in to your mail, no access to your archive |
| Strength | Deep AI across your whole email history | One message read closely, with a reply you can send |
| Setup | Install the app and connect your account | Forward one email to your private address |
| Price | $30, $45 or $120 per seat per month | From $16.99 per month |
| Free trial | 14 days | 7 days, 50 analyses, no card |
Competitor details last verified on 12 August 2026, from Shortwave's own pricing page. Prices change, so check theirs before deciding.
When CatchTheMail is the wrong choice
Shortwave does several things we deliberately cannot do. If you need any of the following, it is the better tool and we would rather you knew that now.
- You want to ask questions across your entire email history. We only see forwarded messages, so there is no archive for us to search.
- You want summaries of everything that arrived while you were away, without selecting anything.
- You want the assistant inside the app where you already read mail, rather than in a separate dashboard.
- You want AI filters, bundles and inbox reorganisation. We cannot change your mailbox, by design.
Other comparisons
Works with the mailbox you already have
No install, no Google permission screen, no migration. Forward one message and see what comes back.
Start free for 7 days