SaneBox: What It Is, Pricing and How to Use It (2026 Guide)

What is SaneBox?

SaneBox is an AI email filter that works on top of the mailbox you already have. It is not an email app: you keep reading mail in Gmail, Outlook, Apple Mail or whatever client you prefer. SaneBox connects to your mail server, watches new messages as they arrive, and moves the ones it judges unimportant out of your Inbox into folders such as @SaneLater. Because those folders live on the server, the result shows up in every app and on every device you use.

It is made by SaneBox, Inc. Its sorting decisions come from header data (who sent the message, the subject line) combined with your own behaviour, such as which senders you open and how quickly you reply. You correct it by moving a message into or out of a Sane folder, and it learns from that.

The problem it solves is simple: the Inbox mixes the five emails that need you today with fifty that do not. SaneBox separates them without asking you to change how you read mail. Newer features add AI summaries, AI-drafted replies and follow-up reminders on top of the filtering.

Who it is for

• Professionals with high email volume who spend the first hour of the day triaging rather than replying.
• People attached to their current email app. If you like Outlook or Apple Mail and do not want a new client, SaneBox is one of the few options that improves triage without replacing the app.
• Anyone using several devices. Sorting happens on the server, so your phone, laptop and webmail all see the same cleaned-up Inbox.
• People who lose track of replies. SaneReminders and SaneNoReplies are useful for sales, recruiting, freelancing and any role where unanswered emails cost money.
• Newsletter collectors who want subscriptions out of the Inbox but still available to read in one place.

It is not for people with light email loads, where Gmail’s built-in tabs or Outlook’s Focused Inbox are enough. It cannot help with POP accounts. And if you want a single tool that manages both email and your task list, pair it with a task manager such as Todoist rather than expecting SaneBox to do both.

Key features

• SaneLater. The core feature. Low-priority mail is moved from the Inbox into the @SaneLater folder, so the Inbox holds only what SaneBox thinks you need to see now. Moving a message back to the Inbox trains it.
• Digest. A daily email summarising what landed in your Sane folders, so you can scan the filtered mail in one pass and rescue anything that matters.
• SaneNews. Collects newsletters and mailing lists in their own folder, away from both the Inbox and SaneLater.
• SaneBlackHole. Drag a message from an unwanted sender into this folder and you never see that sender again. Future messages go to the folder and can be trashed automatically. It is effectively an unsubscribe that works even when the sender ignores unsubscribe requests.
• SaneCC. Collects messages where you are only copied, which are rarely urgent.
• SaneSnooze and SaneReminders. Snooze hides an email and brings it back later through folders such as @SaneTomorrow and @SaneNextWeek. Reminders let you ask to be reminded about an email, including “remind me if no reply by” a deadline. SaneNoReplies keeps a running list of sent emails that have not received an answer.
• Sane DIY Training. Custom folders that learn from examples you move into them, for example a folder for invoices or for one client.
• SaneTodo. Turns an email into a task in Todoist or TickTick.
• SaneSummary and Reply Draft. SaneSummary writes an AI summary of an email or thread. Reply Draft (also called SaneDrafts) writes reply drafts in your tone and saves them to your normal Drafts folder. Drafts are never sent automatically, usually appear 10 to 15 minutes after a qualifying email, and are skipped for automated mail such as receipts and alerts, threads you already answered, CC-only messages and very short emails. SaneBox’s help article says it is available on plans that include AI features; the pricing page data lists Reply Draft and AI summaries as included only in the Dinner plan.
• iOS and Android apps. Both are included on every plan. The Android app launched in September 2026 with the Digest, one-tap SaneBlackHole, snooze, reminders and SaneNoReplies.

Pricing

At the time of writing SaneBox has three self-serve plans, each billed monthly, yearly or every two years, with a 7-day free trial that includes all features on up to four email accounts. Prices are in USD. The plans differ in how many email accounts you can connect and how many features you can switch on at once.

Plan	Monthly	Yearly	Every 2 years	Email accounts	Feature slots
Snack	$9.49/month	$65/year (about $5.42/month)	$109 (about $4.54/month)	1	2
Lunch	$15.99/month	$109/year (about $9.08/month)	$179 (about $7.46/month)	2	6
Dinner	$42.99/month	$319/year (about $26.58/month)	$529 (about $22.04/month)	4	All features

Paying yearly saves around 38 to 43% compared with monthly billing, and the two-year option saves around 49 to 53%, according to the figures on the pricing page. Educational, non-profit and government organisations can claim an extra 25% off by contacting support during the trial.

The feature slots are the limit that matters. They are counted per connected email account, so a Lunch plan gets six features on each of its two accounts. SaneLater, SaneNews, SaneCC, a custom training folder and the snooze folders each use one. On Snack you can run SaneLater plus one more feature, which is a fair trial of the concept but not much else. Lunch’s six slots cover the features most people use. Dinner is for power users: it includes every feature, up to four accounts and phone support (the other plans get email, live chat and a concierge call). More than four accounts requires contacting support. The pricing page data lists Reply Draft and AI summaries only under Dinner; we could not confirm whether Snack or Lunch can add them, or what business pricing is, so check with SaneBox before buying a lower plan for the AI features.

How to use SaneBox: step-by-step

1. Sign up and connect your mailbox

1. Go to sanebox.com and start the free trial.
2. Connect your email account. Google, Microsoft 365, Yahoo and AOL use OAuth, so you sign in with your provider and grant access without giving SaneBox your password. iCloud and Fastmail use an app-specific password that you generate in your provider’s account settings.
3. SaneBox analyses your recent mail headers and your past behaviour to decide which senders matter. It then creates its folders on your server and starts sorting new mail.

Expect a short delay between a message arriving and it being moved. That is normal: SaneBox works alongside your mail server rather than intercepting mail before it arrives.

2. Train SaneLater in the first week

1. Open @SaneLater in your usual email app once or twice a day during the first week.
2. If something important landed there, move it back to the Inbox. SaneBox treats that as a signal that the sender matters.
3. If something unimportant reached the Inbox, move it into @SaneLater.
4. Read the daily Digest email for a quick scan of everything that was filtered.

A handful of corrections in the first days does most of the work. After that, training is occasional.

3. Clear newsletters and unwanted senders

1. In the SaneBox Dashboard, turn on SaneNews if newsletters crowd your Inbox and SaneCC if you are copied on a lot of threads. Each uses a feature slot.
2. When a sender you never want to hear from again emails you, drag that message into the @SaneBlackHole folder. Future messages from that sender bypass your Inbox.

4. Set up reminders and follow-ups

1. Enable SaneReminders and SaneNoReplies in the Dashboard.
2. Use a reminder when you send an email that needs an answer by a certain date; SaneBox will tell you if no reply arrives in time.
3. Check the SaneNoReplies list weekly for sent emails that went unanswered.
4. If you use Todoist or TickTick, enable SaneTodo so an email that needs real work becomes a task in your task manager instead of sitting in the Inbox.

5. Turn on the AI features (optional)

If your plan includes AI features (the pricing data lists Reply Draft and AI summaries under Dinner; Snack and Lunch are not confirmed), turn on Reply Draft from the SaneBox Dashboard. Drafts will start appearing in your normal Drafts folder for qualifying emails. Read and edit every draft before sending; nothing is sent for you. SaneSummary gives you a summary of long emails and threads.

6. Install the mobile app

Install the SaneBox app for iOS or Android to read the Digest, snooze, set reminders and blackhole senders from your phone. The Sane folders also work in any mail app on any device.

Tips to get better results

• Spend your first two slots wisely on Snack. SaneLater plus SaneNews or SaneReminders gives the most benefit for most inboxes.
• Correct by moving, not by deleting. Deleting a misfiled email teaches SaneBox nothing; moving it to the right folder does.
• Read the Digest, not the folder. Scanning one summary email a day is faster than opening @SaneLater repeatedly.
• Use SaneBlackHole for persistent senders. It is quicker than hunting for unsubscribe links and works on senders who ignore them.
• Create a DIY folder for recurring categories such as receipts or one client’s project updates, so they skip the Inbox but stay together.
• Treat Reply Draft as a starting point. Edit drafts for facts and tone; AI drafts can sound right while missing context only you know. Our guide on how to write better prompts explains why specific input produces better AI output.
• Pair it with a calendar tool. SaneBox handles the Inbox; a tool such as Reclaim protects time to actually reply.

Limitations and common problems

• No free plan. After the 7-day trial you pay. Use the trial on your real, busiest account so you learn whether it helps.
• Feature slots on lower plans. Snack’s two slots and single account are narrow, and the AI features are listed only on Dinner. If you keep hitting the limit, Lunch is the realistic plan.
• Sorting is not instant. Mail can sit in the Inbox briefly before it is moved. If you need perfect real-time filtering, server-side rules in your mail provider are faster for simple cases.
• POP is not supported. Switch the account to IMAP or Exchange first.
• Reply Draft has no targeting. At the time of writing you cannot tell it which emails to draft replies for; it decides based on its own rules.
• AI privacy detail is thin. Core filtering uses headers only, but SaneSummary and Reply Draft must process message content, and SaneBox does not name its AI provider or a retention period for that processing. Leave them off if your organisation has strict data rules.
• Dated privacy policy. The policy was last modified in February 2021 and still refers to the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield, which is no longer a valid transfer mechanism. EU businesses should ask SaneBox for current transfer terms.

Alternatives

• Gmail tabs and filters or Outlook Focused Inbox - free and built in; good enough for moderate email volume, with no follow-up tracking.
• Superhuman - a full email client with fast triage and AI features, for people willing to change apps.
• Fyxer - an AI assistant that sorts mail and drafts replies; SaneBox publishes its own comparison against it.
• Todoist - not an email filter, but its Email Assist turns forwarded emails into tasks, and SaneTodo connects the two.
• Reclaim - an AI calendar that schedules focus time so email does not eat the whole day.

See every option in our productivity tools directory. If you run a service business and want email, tasks and customers in one system, Vea takes a different, all-in-one approach.

Verdict

Sign up for SaneBox if email volume is your real problem and you want to keep the email app you already know. It does the boring part well: the Inbox gets shorter, newsletters go somewhere sensible, and reminders catch the emails that would otherwise slip. Start the trial on your busiest account and plan on the Lunch plan, since Snack’s two feature slots are tight. Skip it if your inbox is already manageable with built-in tabs and filters, if you use POP, or if your organisation cannot accept AI features from an undisclosed provider (you can still use the header-only filtering without them).