If you're someone who relies on email for work or personal communication, it’s easy for your inbox to pile up. The best way to organize your inbox is to archive messages, letting you remove emails from your inbox without deleting them.
But how to move archived emails to the inbox in Gmail?
In this article, we'll show you what happens when you archive an email and how to unarchive Gmail emails.
What happens when you archive an email in Gmail?
In Gmail, archiving an email removes it from your inbox and moves it from your inbox to the All Mail label. You never know when you’ll need the information in an email in the future, so archiving old emails is a better practice than deleting them outright.
There are a few reasons why you might need to archive an email. Archiving emails is a great way to declutter your inbox of messages you no longer need to reference. Many businesses must keep records of all internal communications, and archiving allows you to keep emails around for legal or compliance reasons. Archived emails can also be useful for reference later on.
When you archive an email and someone replies to it, it’ll reappear in your inbox. This is because Gmail’s default setting is to show unread messages in your inbox, and the reply is unread even though the original message is not. If you’d like an email and any replies to it not to show up in your inbox, you can mute the conversation. You can always search for the conversation if you need it.
Now that all of that’s covered, let’s say you want to unarchive an email and bring it back to your inbox. Luckily, it’s super easy if you know how to unarchive a message in Gmail!
How to undo archived emails in Gmail
Step 1: Go to your Gmail
The first step is to open your Gmail account. This can be done on your computer or mobile device—the steps are the same! Go to Gmail and log in with your credentials.
Step 2: Go to the All Mail label
Once you're logged in, go over to the side menu on the left. Click “More” to open a dropdown with more labels, and then select “All Mail.” Remember, this is where emails are sent when you archive a message. Every email (besides spam) is located in the All Mail label.
Step 3: Search for the archived email
Once you’ve opened the All Mail label, you should see a long list of messages. Now, you can always scroll through the list to find the email you’re looking for, but this will take forever. Instead, use the search bar at the top of the page.
Enter in the subject line, the sender’s name, or any keywords you remember from the email. If you’re having trouble recalling, you can always use “Advanced search.” From the advanced search menu, you can enter the sender, recipient, subject, keywords, timeframe, etc.
Once you've entered any relevant information, click the ''Search'' button. This should narrow down your results a lot. You should be able to find the archived message you’re looking for!
Step 4: Check the box next to the email
Once you've found the email you're looking for, check the box next to it to select it. You can also select multiple emails by checking the boxes next to each one.
Step 5: Move archived emails to inbox in Gmail
Once you've selected the email(s) you want to unarchive, click on the ''Move to inbox'' button at the top right side of the page. The icon looks very similar to the Archive button, but it will unarchive your Gmail email.
Clicking this will move your email(s) back to your inbox, making it much easier to find. The message should appear in order of the date and time it was sent. You've now successfully unarchived an email in Gmail!
How to archive and unarchive emails in Gmail to organize your inbox
Now that you know about archiving emails as well as how to undo unarchived emails in Gmail, it’s time to put this knowledge into practice. Start by archiving old messages that are no longer relevant or taking up space in your inbox. Create a system where you decide whether to archive and/or mute new messages after you’ve read them.
And don’t forget to unarchive Gmail emails when you need them again! With a little bit of practice, you’ll have an inbox that is neatly organized and easy to navigate.