Split Inbox

Split Inbox is one of Superhuman’s most powerful features. You can use default Splits such as "Important • Other," "Team," "VIP," and "Calendar," to automatically sort your emails. Or, you can create custom Splits based on your preferences! 

By prioritizing your emails with Splits, you can cut through the noise, focus on critical emails first, and manage your inbox more efficiently. It’s important to note that Splits only show emails that are in your inbox, and haven’t been marked Done ✔️

Default Split Inboxes

Superhuman has several built-in Splits available that you can enable by hitting Cmd+K (Mac) or Ctrl+K (Windows) → Split Inbox Settings. Depending on the types of emails in your inbox, Superhuman may have some Splits enabled already!

The built-in default Splits are the following:

  • Important • Other — automatically sort conversations from marketing, social networks, and automatic updates
  • Team — separates conversations from your teammates sent from an email address that matches your domain
  • News — hit Cmd+K or Ctrl+K → Add to Split Inbox or News Split Senders to add specific senders to this Split to sort news emails into a separate place. Depending on the emails in your inbox, Superhuman may automatically create this Split to sort things like emails from The New York Times, The Washington Post, Wired, or similar 
  • Calendar — Emails that contain a calendar invite file (an .ICS file) or emails from notifications@calendly.com, and calendar-notification@google.com. 
  • Google Docs — conversations from docs.google.com, drive-shares-noreply@google.com, or drive-shares-dm-noreply@google.com
  • Asana — emails from no-reply@asana.com
  • Basecamp — emails from @3.basecamp.com
  • ClickUp — emails from @tasks.clickup.com or noreply@clickup.com
  • GitHub — conversations from notifications@github.com or noreply.github.com, and emails sent to noreply.github.com 
  • Jira — messages from jira@ emails with the subject "[JIRA]"
  • Linear — emails from notifications@mail.linear.app 
  • Monday — messages from notifications@monday.com or no_reply@monday.com
  • Notion — messages from notify@mail.notion.so
  • OneDrive — emails from onedrive.com
  • Sharepoint — emails from sharepointonline.com
  • Trello — emails from do-not-reply@trello.com

Creating a new Split Inbox

You can create a simple Split inbox by selecting an email in your inbox and hitting Cmd+K or Ctrl+K on → New Split Inbox. From there, you can create the Split based off the full email address, the domain, the recipient, or the subject:

Once you've selected how you want that Split to sort emails, you just need to pick a name — and voilà! You've created a Split ✨

To add to that Split, select a different email and hit Cmd+K or Ctrl+K → Add to Split Inbox. Similar to above, you'll want to pick between the email address, domain, recipient, or the subject. After you make your selection, hit Enter, and those emails will now be sorted into the Split you chose 🪄

Creating complex custom Splits in Gmail accounts

When you're creating a custom Split, it's helpful to think of it like a saved search. We’ll start by creating the search that your Split will use to find emails:

  1. Hit / to start a search.
  2. Search for the emails you'd like to Split.
    1. You can Split by using searches such as to:, from:, label:, category:, or subject:"the email's subject". 
    2. If you'd like to use multiple searches in a Split, you can separate them with an OR, like from:connor@superhuman.com OR from:rahul.vohra@superhuman.com
    3. You can also exclude searches by including a “-” before the query. So, -from:connor@superhuman.com
  3. Once you've typed out your Split's search, hit Enter to see those results.
  4. If the results look good, hit Cmd+K or Ctrl+K → New Split Inbox and type out a name 🙌

If you're editing or adding to an existing Split, you can adjust them like so:

  1. Hit Cmd+K or Ctrl+K → Split Inbox Settings.
  2. Move your cursor over the Split you'd like to edit.
  3. Click the gear icon to the right ⚙️
  4. From here, you can add to the split's "Definition" using the same syntax as your search query, so to:, from:, Cc, Bcc, subject, or label.
    1. To have your Split filter multiple items, you can separate them with an OR. You can format it like from:connor@superhuman.com OR to:superhuman.com

You can also create Splits based on Gmail’s automatic categorization of emails:

  1. Hit / to start a search.
  2. Enter one of these search queries:
    1. Category:forums
    2. Category:personal
    3. Category:promotions
    4. Category:social
    5. Category:updates
  3. Hit Enter to see your search results.
  4. Hit Cmd+K (Ctrl+K) → Split Inbox.
  5. Enter a name for the Split.

From the Superhuman Mobile app

To create a custom Split from the Mobile app: 

  1. Pull down from the top of the inbox, then swipe right to pull up Superhuman Command — like you're making an "L."
  2. Type Split Inbox Settings and tap on the option.
  3. Tap on the account you'd like to create a split in.
  4. Tap Add Split Inbox.
  5. Under Build your own, tap how you'd like to create that Split query (Domain, Label or Subject).

Creating custom Splits in Outlook accounts

When you're creating a custom Split, it's helpful to think of it like a saved search. We’ll start by creating the search that your Split will use to find emails:

  1. Hit / to start a search
  2. Search for the emails you'd like to Split. 
    1. You can Split by using searches to:, from:, or subject:"the email's subject". 
    2. If you'd like to use multiple searches in a Split, you can separate them with an OR, such as from:connor@superhuman.com OR from:rahul.vohra@superhuman.com
  3. Once you've typed out your Split's search, hit Enter to see those results
  4. If the results look good, hit Cmd+K or Ctrl+K → New Split Inbox and type out a name 🙌

If you're editing or adding to an existing Split, you can adjust them like so:

  1. Hit Cmd+K or Ctrl+K → Split Inbox Settings.
  2. Move your cursor over the Split you'd like to edit.
  3. Click the gear icon to the right ⚙️
  4. From here, you can add to the split's "Definition" using the same syntax as your search query, so  to, from, Cc, Bcc, or subject
    1. To have your Split filter multiple items, you can separate them with an OR. You can format it like from:connor@superhuman.com OR to:superhuman.com 

From the Superhuman Mobile app

To create a custom Split from the Mobile app: 

  1. Pull down from the top of the inbox, then swipe right to pull up Superhuman Command — like you're making an "L."
  2. Type Split Inbox Settings and tap on the option.
  3. Tap on the account you'd like to create a split in.
  4. Tap Add Split Inbox.
  5. Under Build your own, tap how you'd like to create that Split query (Domain or Subject).

Delete or Disable a Split

You can delete a Split entirely like so:

  1. Hit Cmd+K or Ctrl+K → Split Inbox Settings.
  2. Mouse over a split's name.
  3. Click the gear that appears ⚙️
  4. Click "DELETE".

Alternatively, you can hit Cmd+K or Ctrl+K → Split Inbox Settings and uncheck the box to the right of a Split to disable it without deleting it. 

When a Split is deleted or disabled, the emails will return to your Important • Other Splits (depending on the type of email) or to your Inbox. 

Reordering Splits

The “Important • Other” can’t be adjusted, but other Splits can be rearranged like so: 

  1. Hit Cmd+K or Ctrl+K → Split Inbox Settings.
  2. Mouse over a split's name.
  3. Click-and-drag the three horizontal lines that appear.

Troubleshooting

Emails appearing in multiple Splits at once 

Emails will appear in Important • Other, VIP, or Team simultaneously. This is intentional — our thinking is that emails from your VIPs or your teammates are ones you’ll want to be extra responsive to, so we show them in multiple places at once! 

Emails from custom Splits will not show in Important/Inbox. 

“Sorry! This makes your Split Inbox queries too long” error 

This error occurs when the total length of all your combined Split queries exceed the limit that Gmail or Outlook allow Superhuman to use. Splits are essentially a constantly running search query, and Gmail or Outlook place a hard limit on the total number of characters a search query can use: 

  • For Gmail accounts, that character limit is 7,800 characters total combined across all your Splits (including the defaults) 
  • For Outlook accounts, that character limit is 3,000 characters total combined across all your Splits (including the defaults) 

Shortening Lengthy Splits

There are a few ways to alleviate this by using fewer characters in your Split Inbox queries. 

  • Combine “OR” queries by using curly brackets { }. If you have a list of email addresses separated by “OR” you can create a list within curly brackets, and Superhuman will treat it as an “OR” query. 
    • That would look something like: from:{address@website.com, website@address.com, company@website.com}
  • Combine “AND” queries in parenthesis ( ). If you have a list of email addresses separated by “AND”, you can create a list within parentheses and Superhuman will treat it as an “AND” query. 
    • That would look something like: from:(company@website.com, website@company.com, address@company.com)

“Sorry! We can’t split the inbox on ‘x’ searches” error

This error means that the search query you’re using can’t be used as a Split, or the syntax of the search query isn’t quite right. You’ll first want to double-check for any extra spaces, missing colons, or typos. 

For Gmail accounts, you can use these search queries to create a custom Split:

  • To:, from:, label:, category:, subject: 

For Outlook accounts, you can use these search queries to create a custom Split: 

  • To:, from:, subject:
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