shortwave

name	shortwave
description	Shortwave email client knowledge — how its labels and filters relate to Gmail, what syncs and what doesn't, settings URLs, and UI automation gotchas. Use when a task involves Shortwave, its auto-apply rules, or labels as seen from Shortwave.

Shortwave

Shortwave (app.shortwave.com) is a Gmail client. Gmail remains the backend for mail, user labels, and Gmail filters — Gmail filters run server-side before Shortwave sees a message, and Shortwave honors them.

Label namespaces (three things can share one name)

Kind	Lives in	Picker appearance	Notes
Gmail user label	Gmail, syncs everywhere	plain tag icon; URL /labels/gmail%2FLabel_<id>	The only kind Gmail filters can apply
Shortwave built-in label	Shortwave only	own icon (cart, plane, …); URL /labels/<name>	Travel, Calendar, Newsletters, Purchases, Finance, Social, Promotions, Forums, Updates — auto-applied by Shortwave's classifier, invisible to Gmail, not removable from the picker
Gmail system category	Gmail UI only (#category/…)	not shown	ML-assigned; not writable by apps; filters' Categorize-as covers only the five inbox tabs

Near-identical names across namespaces are easy to misread in the "Label as" picker.

Rules and filters

• "Always Apply" / auto-apply rules (Settings → Filters → Label auto-apply rules) are stored in Shortwave's backend — never as Gmail filters, even for plain sender→label rules targeting Gmail labels. They don't count toward Gmail's 1,000-filter cap.
• Effect vs rule: applying a Gmail label syncs to Gmail (visible in all clients); the rule itself is Shortwave-only and dies with the Shortwave account.
• No export for auto-apply rules — the rule dialog offers only add/remove sender. To export, open each rule's gear and transcribe its sender list.
• Shortwave cannot manage Gmail filters: it shows a cached count (Settings → Filters → "Gmail filters", refresh link) and links out to Gmail settings for editing.
• AI filters and the quick-start filters (Needs Action, Cold Outreach, FYI, Travel, Finance, Purchases) are Shortwave-side natural-language classifiers, off unless added.

Division of labor (this project)

Keep all deterministic sender/subject→label routing in filters.js → Gmail filters (portable, versioned, client-independent). Use Shortwave's layer only for what Gmail cannot express: AI classification, bundles, delivery schedules, splits. Avoid "Always Apply".

Automating the Shortwave web app

• SPA; settings at /settings/labels, /settings/filters, /settings/inbox. A "We're still importing your email" interstitial may appear — click Refresh.
• Rule-row gear icons are hover-revealed and absent from the accessibility tree: locate them by geometry in JS (element at the same row height, right of the row) and dispatch mouseover/mousedown/mouseup/click MouseEvents.
• The rule dialog is titled "Auto-apply rules for <Label>" with ALWAYS APPLY / ALWAYS REMOVE sender lists.