Gmail Archive: How to Find, Delete and Unarchive Mail

Table of Contents

Gmail Archive

Guys, have you ever found yourself stuck finding archived emails in Gmail? Well, as you are reading this post which clearly shows that you are already struggling to understand where do archived emails go in Gmail.

No worries, I have already faced that hassle and thus I am here with the definite solution.

Here you will learn –

What is Archive in Gmail
How to find archived emails (desktop and gmail app)
How to search for archived emails specifically
How to archive and unarchive emails
How to delete archived emails
Difference between archive and delete
Why you should archive emails
Better alternative of archive

What is Archive in Gmail?

Archive in Gmail is a kind of feature that allows users to clean up their inbox with unnecessary emails without deleting them permanently. When you archive an email it will automatically disappear from your inbox and move into “All Mail” label.

So, either you are thinking that where is archive in Gmail or looking for an archive folder in Gmail then you may end up with nothing.

Why… because there is no archive folder in Gmail. All archived emails will move into a label called All Mail.

Note: Archived Emails will automatically reappear in your inbox when someone reply to it.

How to Find Archived Emails in Gmail from PC and Mobile?

Well, below steps to see archive emails will work the same on both desktop and Gmail app (iPhone and Android).

First, open your Gmail account.
Next, scroll down the navigation and tap on More option.
Now, select All Mail label.

Here, you will see all the emails of different labels like inbox, important, sent, draft, starred, snoozed, and it includes archived emails as well.

In case, the archived email you are looking for is older than few weeks, months or years, you need to browse through these emails manually.

But wait, there is a hack you can try.

If you remember the Subject of the email or the date on which you received that particular email, then you should check below steps to find specific archived emails in Gmail.

How to Search for Specific Archived Email in Gmail App and Desktop?

Finding a specific archived email can be a hassle especially when you got too many emails to browse through.

But, there are several operators you can try to search Gmail by date and subject.

It will narrow down the list so that you don’t have to go through too many emails and will surely save you time.

So, below are the Gmail search operators you can try to see a specific archived email in Gmail app and desktop –

To find an archived email by its Subject, type subject:(your subject goes here) and hit enter. Gmail will show you all the similar results that resembles your subject.

To search specific archived email by its date, type older_than:1m or newer_than:1d. Gmail will show you emails for that particular time period.

Here you can use “m” for months, “y” for years, and “d” for days.

Sometimes, (NOT label:inbox) together with your search query will also work.

How to Archive and Unarchive Email in Gmail?

Let’s assume that you got multiple emails which you want to remove from your inbox without deleting.

For this, just select all emails in Gmail you want to get rid of and click on Archive icon.

It will move all the selected emails from Inbox to All Mail.

In case, if you want one of those emails back into your inbox then just go to All Mail and select that particular email and click on Move to Inbox icon.

This is how you can unarchive email and restore it back into your Gmail inbox.

How to Delete Archived Emails?

Sometimes, we accidently archived unnecessary emails in rush. To get rid of such not important archived emails permanently, you just need to delete them.

For this, go to All Mail and select the email you want to delete and click on Delete icon.

Archive Vs Delete: Get the Real Difference

Archive and Delete both are different features.

Archive will help you to remove emails from inbox which you can restore anytime following above steps.

Besides it, as noted above archived emails will automatically reappear in your inbox when someone replies to it.

On the other hand, delete will move your emails into trash folder. But, if you empty your trash folder then all the emails will be deleted forever.

The good thing is that you can also recover deleted emails as far as they are available in the trash folder.

Why You Should Archive Emails?

Is it make any sense to archive emails? Well yes, especially for those who are getting tons of emails daily.

Out of these emails, few are important, some are not important at a time but you need them later on, and some are worth deleting.

So, you need to archive those emails which you need later on. It will clean up your inbox so that you don’t miss any important emails.

Is There Any Alternative Way to Archive Emails?

When you archive an email, it will move into All Mail label where you need to browse through hundreds of emails to find that particular archived email.

Which is sometime time consuming and cumbersome task for many.

To manage those emails which you need after some weeks or months, you can create custom labels and move such emails into it.

In this way, you can access those particular emails anytime without going through the hassle of filtering bunch of emails.

It will help you to stay more manageable.

Wrapping it up…

So this was all about Gmail Archive.

With above information, I am sure you will never find yourself stuck when it comes to find archived emails in Gmail using your desktop or mobile. Understand the importance of this feature and use it accordingly to leverage the real advantages of it.