An email archive is a folder where you store old, insignificant emails, like invoices and promotions. Unfortunately, Gmail doesn’t have an auto-archiving feature that automatically moves certain emails to the archive. However, you can create your own archive folder so that you never miss out on the more important ones. In this article, we show you multiple ways to automatically move specific emails to the archive folder. This way, you don’t have to delete them and can view them if and when needed.
What is Archiving
Archiving is simply moving the emails to a different location (folder) to tidy up your primary Inbox folder, or to save space on your mail storage. The archived emails always remain but tucked away. They are readily available for you to search, access, and read.
Archiving VS. Deleting
When you delete an email, it is sent to the trash. It remains inside the trash for the next 30 days and then removed from your Gmail permanently. However, as we mentioned earlier, archiving is simply moving your emails from one folder to another. To sum up, the significant difference between archiving and deleting emails is that the former keeps the emails stored, while the latter discards them completely. Using Gmail, you can archive emails using labels and filters. A label is a folder you create manually to separate specific emails using filters. A few of the methods given below will automatically move emails to your specified label(s) without making their way to the primary “Inbox” folder, while some methods can be used to archive older emails.
How To Auto Archive Emails in Gmail using Labels
This method guides you on how to create a label and then automatically move all future emails (based on your selection) to that label. Note that those specific emails will no longer show up in your primary inbox folder. You have now successfully created an auto-archiving mechanism in Gmail. All future emails that meet the filter criteria will now be moved to the archive label. Click on the gear icon in the top-right corner and then click “See all settings.” Scroll down to the Labels section and click Create new label. The Gmail label will now be created. It is now time to use it to archive emails. Note that all future emails from this sender will be archived. You can also make other customizations, like marking the emails as read, never marking them as important, etc. Moreover, you can also check the box next to “Also apply filter to X matching conversations” to move similar emails to the archive label as well. If you want to view these archived emails, then all you need to do is open the label/folder from the left bar in Gmail. However, in the future, if you feel like restoring all the emails to the primary “Inbox” folder, then you just need to delete the label. Deleting the label will not delete any emails, and the emails within that label will be restored to the primary folder automatically.
Archive Old Emails in Gmail using a Filter
Another method to archive emails is using Gmail’s advanced search feature to move old emails to the archive. This method can be used when you have a lot of emails in your Inbox folder and want to get rid of them without deleting any of them. Follow these steps to create a filter for automatically archiving old emails in Gmail: The filter will now be created and all older emails from the specified time will now move to the “All Mail” folder.
older_than:Xd – Filter emails older than X days older_than:Xm – Filter emails older than X months older_than:Xy – Filter emails older than X years
Where X is the number of days, months, or years. However, in the future, if you feel like restoring the archived emails or making changes to the filter, this can be done by removing the filter or editing it from Gmail Settings » Filters and Blocked Addresses.
Archive All Gmail Emails
You can also archive all emails in your Gmail account to remove the clutter and start fresh. However, the archived emails will still take space on your Google Drive and will be moved to the “All Mail” folder. Follow these steps to archive all emails: Your emails will now be archived and you can see that the Inbox folder will be empty. Check the box at the top to select all emails on the current Gmail page. This will only select the emails you can see on your current page. To select all emails in your Inbox, click “Select all X conversations in Inbox,” where X is the number of total emails on your Gmail account. To view your archived emails, go to the “All Mail” folder from the left pane. Also, learn how to unarchive emails in Gmail.
Archive Gmail Emails Offline using PST File
Another method to archive your emails on Gmail is by creating an offline .PST file. This will store your emails offline, after which you can delete the emails from your Gmail account and free up space. This is the only archiving method for Gmail that saves space on your Google Cloud. The process to create a PST file is that you use Microsoft Outlook for Gmail. Follow the steps given below to log in to a Gmail account with Outlook and then use it to create an offline .PST file. The wizard will then export all your emails into a PST file which will be saved locally on your hard drive. You may now proceed to delete the emails from your online Gmail account. Go to File » Export/Import.
How to Unarchive Emails in Gmail
Unarchiving means moving your emails from the “All Mail” folder back to the initial folder; where they once were. Hence, you must move the emails back to their respective folders manually. This requires a manual selection of each email that needs to be moved. The steps below show you how to unarchive emails in Gmail: The archived emails will now move back to the Inbox folder. This process is also known as “Unarchiving.”
