How I Fixed My Email Inbox

I've struggled to manage my work and personal email for years. Recently, I found my solution: use Superhuman Mail.

The Problem:

I get tons of emails that are not easy to unsubscribe from or automatically filter. A lot of it is cold outreach from salespeople. A lot of it is updates from kid events, school, etc., and requests for surveys, interviews, and paid engagements. These are not easy to filter out using traditional Gmail filters. Plus, setting up all these filters takes time.

What I Tried:

First, I switched to Hey.com, attracted by its approach of grouping emails—like the paper trail and the feed. I appreciated features like bubble-up, but after 18 months, Hey didn’t meet my needs. The platform emphasizes categorization and quick reading over archiving, making it difficult for me to maintain a zero-inbox, especially with my high volume. Additionally, as I continued using Hey, issues emerged: some contacts emailed my Hey address, while others stuck with Gmail, making managing replies and migrating back tricky. Calendar integration added more friction, as Hey Calendar conflicted with my dependence on Google Calendar. Ultimately, these challenges prompted me to look for another solution.

After deciding to use a different tool that sits on top of Gmail, so I don't need to manage a separate email address, I tried Shortwave.  The promise of smart filtering was compelling, as was using AI to bulk-manage my inbox. The challenge I had with Shortwave was that the AI only processed a handful of emails at a time, and dealing with a large backlog required multiple iterations, which defeats the whole purpose of AI inbox triage. I also found the app to be slow, which is extremely painful when I'm trying to quickly process email.

The Solution:

Superhuman Mail solves these problems. It's fast, sits on top of Gmail so there's no extra address, and its smarter inbox splits support zero inbox efficiently. I also have this bad habit of seeing an email, realizing I have to do something with it, and leaving it in my inbox for later (violating rule #1 of GTD! We all make mistakes...). Superhuman adds just enough friction to this process that it forces me to deal with the email right away and get it out of the inbox (especially on mobile).  

On top of that, once you get used to the keyboard shortcuts, you can process your entire email inbox extremely quickly without touching the mouse. If you're overwhelmed by email like I was, give Superhuman a try—an empty inbox yields a clear mind.

I don’t really care if you use my referral link since KOHO is covering the cost, but if you want a free month, you can use this.