"Inbox Zero" is 100% not the goal with Shortwave and you won't see it in our marketing. Not to be too cheeky, but "Inbox Organized" is the goal. We want to help you treat your inbox like the to-do list that it is, not necessarily smash every email that enters your inbox. Read more about our workflow in our docs. [1]

[1] https://www.shortwave.com/docs/guides/101/

I've found it's both achievable and a worthwhile way to operate if and only if nearly all of your emails come from humans, and not very many of them.

As soon as transactional emails and marketing mailer scripts start to take over, or long-running CC noise, it's hopeless and fighting it's not worth the time. Forget about it and rely on search. Maybe auto-categorize some senders you want to break through the noise, but anything past that isn't a good use of time (though it may be satisfying, which is enough justification if you're into that kind of thing)

Failing that, skimming the inbox for important messages you missed then hitting archive-all at the end of the day can do it, but it's sort-of cheating and I'm not sure how valuable it is. Periodically auto-archiving anything older than X hours can be nice, but won't (often) get you to Inbox Zero.

I fail to hit zero fewer than three times a month. It's absolutely possible.

Yeah I’ve given up on inbox zero. Inbox is my filing cabinet and that just works.