Superhuman Keyboard Shortcuts
Superhuman's entire product pitch is built around keyboard speed — it's an email client, not a webmail provider, connecting to an existing Gmail or Outlook account but replacing the interaction model entirely with a dense, deliberately memorization-heavy single-letter shortcut scheme, going noticeably further than Gmail's own optional shortcuts in both breadth and default-on status. New users go through an onboarding call specifically because the shortcut set is dense enough that Superhuman's team considers guided training worth the cost to ensure the app is actually used the way it's designed to be used. The onboarding-taught bindings carry over identically whether you're running the browser version or the native desktop app, with Mac simply substituting Cmd where Windows uses Ctrl. This page targets people already paying for or trialing Superhuman who want a reference sheet independent of the live onboarding call, plus anyone evaluating whether the workflow is worth the subscription cost before committing. The general mental model worth internalizing early is that almost every triage action — archive, snooze, done, label — sits on a single unmodified key your fingers never have to leave the home row to reach, while anything destructive or send-related deliberately requires a modifier, which is a conscious design decision to make the frequent actions frictionless and the risky ones slightly harder to trigger by accident.
Inbox Navigation
| Action | Windows | Mac | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Move to next email | J | J | Moves selection down to the next email in the current list, a Gmail-inherited convention Superhuman keeps as its foundation. |
| Move to previous email | K | K | Moves selection up to the previous email, the reverse companion to J. |
| Open selected email | Enter | Return | Opens the currently highlighted email for reading, expanding it from the list view. |
| Open Command Palette | Ctrl+K | Cmd+K | Opens a universal command palette for searching contacts, running any available command, or navigating anywhere in the app, functioning as the fallback for any action you don't have memorized as a direct shortcut. |
| Jump between Splits | Ctrl+1, Ctrl+2, etc. for numbered Splits | Cmd+1, Cmd+2, etc. | Jumps directly to a specific numbered Split (Superhuman's saved, rule-filtered inbox view), letting you move straight to, say, a VIP-only view or a newsletters view without manually clicking through the sidebar. |
Triage Actions
| Action | Windows | Mac | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Archive email | E | E | Archives the selected email instantly and automatically advances to the next one in the list, letting you triage an entire inbox by repeatedly pressing E without pausing between emails. |
| Snooze email | H | H | Temporarily removes an email from the inbox, set to reappear at a chosen future time, with Superhuman's snooze picker supporting fast natural-language-style time selection. |
| Mark as Done | Y | Y | Marks the selected email as Done, Superhuman's terminology for archiving with an explicit 'handled' connotation central to its inbox-zero-oriented workflow philosophy. |
| Move to a specific Split/label | V then type label name | V then type label name | Opens a label/Split picker for filing the current email into a specific category, with Splits being Superhuman's term for saved, automatically-filtered inbox views based on rules. |
| Set a Remind Me follow-up | Ctrl+H (or via Command Palette) | Cmd+H | Flags an email to resurface automatically if no reply is received within a chosen window, distinct from Snooze in that it's specifically tracking whether the thread gets a response rather than just hiding it temporarily. |
| Star/flag an email | S | S | Marks the selected email with a star for quick visual identification later, syncing back to the underlying Gmail or Outlook account's own star/flag state rather than being a Superhuman-only marker. |
Composing
| Action | Windows | Mac | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reply | R | R | Opens the reply composer for the currently open email, addressed to the original sender. |
| Reply All | A | A | Opens the reply composer addressed to every original recipient, not just the sender, the reply-all variant. |
| Forward | F | F | Opens a composer already carrying the original message's content, waiting on a new recipient address to be added — the third of Superhuman's trio of single-letter response actions alongside Reply and Reply All. |
| Send composed email | Ctrl+Enter | Cmd+Return | Sends the currently composed email immediately. |
| Insert a saved snippet | ; then snippet shortcut | ; then snippet shortcut | Typing a semicolon in the compose box opens a snippet search, inserting pre-written boilerplate text without retyping common responses manually, similar in spirit to canned responses in other email tools. |
Frequently Asked Questions
Why does Superhuman require an onboarding call before you can use it?
Superhuman's core value proposition depends on users actually adopting its dense, largely single-letter shortcut scheme rather than falling back to mouse-driven interaction out of unfamiliarity, and the company has stated publicly that guided onboarding meaningfully increases how effectively new users actually internalize and stick with the keyboard-first workflow compared to a self-serve signup with no training, which is why they've kept the onboarding step even as the product has scaled.
What's the actual difference between Archive (E) and Done (Y)?
Functionally, both remove the email from the active inbox similarly, but Superhuman treats them as conceptually distinct within its inbox-management philosophy — Done carries an explicit 'I've handled this' connotation often used as part of a deliberate inbox-zero triage workflow, while Archive is the more general-purpose 'get this out of my inbox' action; some users use them interchangeably in practice despite the intended conceptual distinction.
Does Superhuman work with any email provider, or only Gmail and Outlook?
Superhuman specifically connects to and layers its interface on top of existing Gmail (including Google Workspace) or Microsoft Outlook/Exchange accounts — it isn't its own independent email provider, and it doesn't support arbitrary IMAP accounts outside of those two supported ecosystems as of its current product design.
How is Remind Me different from Snooze?
Snooze simply hides an email from the inbox and brings it back at a set time regardless of what happened in between, useful for deferring something you're not ready to deal with yet. Remind Me is conditional on a reply — it's designed for messages you've sent or are tracking, resurfacing the thread specifically if the recipient hasn't responded within the chosen window, which makes it more of a follow-up-tracking tool than a general deferral tool.
Do the numbered Split shortcuts (Cmd/Ctrl+1, +2, etc.) work the same for everyone?
The numbers correspond to whatever order your own Splits appear in the sidebar, which is user-configurable, so Ctrl+2 on one person's setup might jump to a 'Newsletters' Split while on another person's account it jumps to something entirely different — the shortcut itself is consistent, but which Split it actually opens depends on your personal Split configuration and ordering.
Can the single-letter shortcuts be triggered accidentally while typing in a search box?
Superhuman scopes most single-letter list shortcuts (like J, K, E, Y) to only fire when focus is on the email list itself rather than inside a text input, so typing in the search bar, compose window, or a snippet search field won't accidentally trigger archive or done actions — focus context is what determines whether a bare letter key is interpreted as a shortcut or as literal text input.