How to use the Gmail archive feature to organize your inbox

• Archiving an email on Gmail removes it from your inbox, but you can still access it via search or "All mail."
• You can also unarchive emails if you want to put them back into your inbox.
• Gmail also lets you set up "Archive and send" so you don't have to keep archiving conversations.

If you're looking for a way to clean up your Gmail inbox, archiving could be the way to go.

Archiving a message moves it out of your main inbox, but keeps it accessible. So it's a good option if you want to clean up your inbox without deleting everything and starting from scratch.

Setting up auto-archiving can help keep future conversations from clogging up your inbox. You can always unarchive emails, and if someone replies to an archived message, it will show up in your unread messages again.

Here's what you should know about the archive feature in Gmail.

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How to archive an email in Gmail

The method you'll use will depend on your device.

On desktop

1. Go to Gmail and log in to your account, if needed.

2. Hover over the message you want to archive.

3. Click the Archive icon, which looks like a box with a down arrow, and appears to the right of the email's sender information and description.

On iPhone or iPad

1. Open the Gmail app and log in, if necessary.

2. Either tap to open the message or tap to select the sender's profile image. If you're selecting the email profile image, you can select multiple profile images to archive all selected messages at once.

3. Select the Archive icon at the top of the screen.

Quick tip: You can also set up swiping actions to archive a message by swiping to the left or right. To do that, go into Gmail Settings, tap Mail swipe actions, choose left or right swipe, and assign it to Archive.

On Android

1. Open the Gmail app and sign in, if needed.

2. Open the message you want to archive, or select multiple messages if you want to archive more than one.

3. Tap the Archive icon.

Quick tip: You can set up swiping actions to archive a message by swiping to the left or right. To do so, open the Gmail app and go into Settings, then set either left or right swipe to Archive.

How to find archived emails on desktop

Once a message is archived, you can find it either via the All Mail folder or using the search bar.

Using the 'All Mail' folder

1. Hover your cursor over the left edge of the Gmail window. A sidebar will expand.

2. Click All mail from within that sidebar. If you don't see that, click More and then scroll down to All mail.

3. Any archived messages, as well as other non-deleted emails, will appear there.

Quick tip: If you aren't seeing the sidebar expand, click the three-line icon, located in the top-left corner of the screen.

Using the search bar

Unfortunately, you can't simply search for the Archive label in the search bar to find those emails.

1. If you know keywords for the email you're looking for - for example, the topic, sender, or subject of the message - type those into the search bar and hit Enter.

2. If not, type "-in:Sent -in:Draft -in:Inbox" -has:nouserlabels" (with the quotes) into the search bar and hit Enter. This essentially brings up your All mail inbox.

3. Go through the results to find the email in question.

How to find archived emails on the mobile app

These processes are the same regardless of whether you're using an iPhone or an Android.

Using the 'All Mail' folder

1. Open your Gmail app and log in to your account, if needed.

2. Tap the three-line icon, located in the top-left corner of the screen.

3. Select All mail.

Using the search bar

1. Open the Gmail app.

2. Tap the search bar at the top of the screen and enter your keywords.

How to unarchive emails in Gmail

If you decide you don't want an email to be archived anymore, you have the option to unarchive it.

On desktop

1. Open Gmail on your Mac or PC.

2. Scroll to and click on the All Mail category on the left side.

3. Scroll or search to find the email you wish to unarchive.

4. Once you've found it, right-click the email and select Move to inbox.

On the mobile app

1. Open the Gmail app on your iPhone or Android device.

2. Tap the three-line icon in the upper-left corner of the screen.

3. Scroll down until you find the All mail tab. Tap to open.

4. Scroll or search for the message you wish to unarchive. Tap to open once you've located it.

5. Tap the three-dot icon in the upper-right corner.

6. Select Move to Inbox.

How to automatically archive emails in Gmail

You can set up emails to archive automatically when you hit send.

1. Open Gmail and log in, if you necessary.

2. Click the gear icon on the top-right side of the screen.

3. Select See all settings.

4. Under General, find the Send and Archive section.

5. Select Show "Send & Archive" button in reply.

6. Scroll down and click Save changes.

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