Shortwave alternative: CatchTheMail
Shortwave is one of the most capable AI email applications available, with search, summaries and assistants built deeply into the client. This page addresses the two questions that most often weigh against it: which email provider you use, and how much of your mail you are willing to share.
Where Shortwave is strong
Shortwave is an AI-native email client. Its assistant can search across years of mail, draw context from many threads at once, summarise what happened while you were away and draft replies that reflect your own writing style. Features such as bundles, splits and AI filters reorganise the inbox around the way you work.
For someone whose work runs on Google mail and who wants an assistant with access to the entire archive, that depth is genuinely difficult to match by forwarding individual messages. If you want to ask questions about your email history, Shortwave is the appropriate tool, not CatchTheMail.
Where CatchTheMail is different
The two products start from opposite positions. Shortwave becomes more useful the more of your mailbox it can access. CatchTheMail is designed so that it can access none of it.
You receive 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. Whichever 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 single platform.
In return, you accept a genuine limitation: we see only 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 precisely what you give up.
In daily use, the difference is smaller than it may appear, because the messages that can actually cost you money are rarely buried in the archive. They are the quote request, the contract question and the client who is quietly becoming dissatisfied, and they arrive one at a time. Forwarding the two or three that matter each day is a habit most people establish within 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 differ mainly in the amount of 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: 300 on Starter, 1,000 on Pro and 4,000 on Team. There is no AI usage meter to monitor and no archive to grant access to.
If your employer or your client contracts make connecting a third-party client difficult, that constraint usually decides the comparison before price is even considered.
Side by side
| Shortwave | CatchTheMail | |
|---|---|---|
| Mail provider | Built around Google mail | Any provider that can forward an email |
| Access model | Sign in and grant the app access to your mail | No sign-in to your mail and no access to your archive |
| Strength | Deep AI across your whole email history | In-depth analysis of one message, 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 may change, so please check their current pricing before deciding.
When CatchTheMail is the wrong choice
Shortwave offers several capabilities that we have deliberately chosen not to provide. If you need any of the following, it is the better tool, and we would prefer that you know this from the outset.
- You want to ask questions across your entire email history. We see only 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. By design, we cannot make changes to your mailbox.
Other comparisons
Works with the mailbox you already have
No installation, no Google permission screen and no migration. Forward one message and evaluate the result.
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