What is Archive in Email? A Guide to Decluttering Your Inbox

“Archive” in email is a feature that lets you store emails you want to keep but don’t need in your primary inbox. When you archive an email, you’re not deleting it. Instead, you’re moving it out of your primary view to reduce clutter but saving it in a place where you can easily find and access it later. 

Navigating through a cluttered inbox can feel overwhelming, especially if you run a business and receive many emails daily. Each message, whether it’s a client inquiry, a team update, or an invoice, demands attention. The challenge? Balancing the need to keep essential emails close at hand without letting your inbox turn into an endless maze. 

Let’s see what is archive in email and how it can make your email experience smoother and more organized.

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What Is the Purpose of Archiving Emails?

So, what is the point of archiving emails? 

Archiving is an efficient solution to declutter your main workspace while keeping important communications within reach.

When you’re done with an email, it doesn’t always mean you don’t need it anymore. But you might not know when exactly you’ll return to it. So, instead of keeping it in the inbox, you’ll archive it. You can retrieve the message any time you want, and it’ll return to your inbox if someone replies. 

Email archiving comes in two variants: 

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 1. Archiving Features in Email Clients

These are built right into your email platform, like Gmail or Outlook. They work like labeling or folder systems. When you archive a conversation, the email client simply removes it from your primary inbox view and tucks it into the “Archive” folder. It’s still in your email system, just out of the main sight. 

This type of archiving is ideal for organizing your inbox if you receive a mix of important and not-so-important emails.

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2. Third-Party Archiving Solutions

These software tools don’t just move your emails; they store them securely and often come with advanced search features, backup capabilities, and even compliance measures. They can handle large volumes of emails, and they might store emails outside of your main email system to guarantee 

Archiving software is great for businesses or professionals with legal or regulatory obligations to retain emails for a long time. More on archiving solutions later. 

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Archiving vs. Deleting

Think of archiving like moving your emails into a storage closet. Your archived emails aren’t visible in your inbox, but they’re still in your email storage — unless you use archiving software to move them to another location or platform. These emails will stay in the archive until you manually delete them. So, shifting emails to the archive won’t free up space. 

On the other hand, deleting an email is like tossing it into a bin. It sits there for a while (typically 30 days), and then it’s gone forever. Some email clients don’t automatically empty the trash folder. In that case, if you need to free up space, you have to empty that folder manually. Remember, once an email is permanently deleted, you can’t get it back. 

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Archiving vs. Backup

Archiving may seem like backing up your data. Both are ways of saving your emails for future use and protecting them against data loss. If they’re similar and you have one, do you need the other? 

Backing up saves an exact copy of your emails, preferably to another location or device.

Archiving is more about organization and accessibility. When you archive an email, you’re moving it from your main inbox, but you don’t have another copy of the email. So, if something goes wrong, you’ll lose your data. 

Here’s a detailed comparison of the two concepts: 

*	Email Backups	Archiving in Email Clients
Purpose	Recovery	Organization and accessibility
Content	Entire email database	Selected emails moved out of the main inbox
Storage location	External drives or cloud backup systems	Inside the email client, in a separate “Archived” folder
Frequency	Daily, weekly, or monthly based on set schedules.	On-demand, whenever a user chooses to archive an email.
Duration	Based on backup frequency; no need to keep old backups	Indefinite, unless manually deleted

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How Do I Archive Emails? 

Each email client has its own steps for archiving. Here’s how to archive your emails with the most popular clients: 

Gmail

Archiving emails in Gmail is pretty straightforward for all your devices: 

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How do I Retrieve Archived Emails?

Here’s how to retrieve your archived emails with different email clients. 

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To retrieve your archived messages in Outlook, all you need to do is open the app and click Archive from the sidebar on the left. 

Retrieve Emails from Yahoo! Mail Archive

Open Yahoo Mail on your computer and find Archive on the left sidebar. All your archived messages are in this folder. If the folder is crowded, you can use the search bar to find the message you want. 

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Third-party Archiving Services

Using the archiving features in email apps is the least complicated and fastest way to archive messages and keep them organized. It’s perfect if you’re solo, but when you’re working in a team, things can get complicated quickly. If each team member can only see their own archived emails, collaboration becomes a challenge. Important messages might be missed, and information can get siloed. 

This is where third-party archiving solutions can help. These platforms offer a more centralized approach to archiving that promotes better teamwork and information sharing. They also give you features to manage, search, and retrieve archived emails efficiently.

Google Vault, Microsoft Azure Archive Storage, and Dell EMC SourceOne are a few noteworthy options. 

Besides streamlining collaboration, using an archiving platform can have these perks: 

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Storage Management

Moving emails to the archive doesn’t necessarily free up storage in the overall sense — emails aren’t deleted; they’re simply moved. But archiving services let you relocate your archived messages to a separate disk or cheaper cloud storage. This way, you can store thousands of conversations without overwhelming your inbox’s storage capacity. 

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Fast Access and Retrieval 

Even if you have unlimited inbox storage, sifting through hundreds of emails to find a specific message can take hours. Archiving solutions provide organized and indexed storage, making it easier to locate any email. You’ll save time and reduce the frustration of endless scrolling and searching.

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Compliance

Some jurisdictions or industries have strict rules about how long businesses have to preserve customer data and communications. For example, according to HIPAA, healthcare service providers must maintain patient communications for at least six years. And the Investment Advisors Association obligates investment advisors to keep client correspondence available for at least five years. 

These obligations don’t just apply to large organizations. Even if you’re a one-person show, you still have to follow regulations, and keeping an efficient email archive can protect you from legal trouble. 

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Litigation Protection

While archiving regulations don’t exist for all industries, it’s still a good idea to maintain records of your business correspondence and transactional emails. Any business could become involved in legal disputes, and having a historical record of your communications can protect your interests. 

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How To Choose the Best Third-Party Archiving Tool

Like any B2B software, there’s no shortage of archiving platforms. While each one has distinct capabilities, there are some must-have features you shouldn’t compromise on:

• Intuitive user interface. 
• Integration with other tools. 
• Advanced indexing and search.
• Support for multiple storage types.
• Configurable policies for compliance. 
• Security and encrypted email storage. 

Another essential feature is granular access control. That means the platform lets you specify who can view, modify, or delete archived emails. For example, you might want only certain team members or departments to access sensitive information, while others might only need to view general communications. You should also have the option to define new roles and assign detailed permissions. 

Finally, watch out for vendor lock-ins. Essentially, a vendor locks you in when you become too dependent on a single service provider, making it challenging and costly to switch to another platform later. Vendors often design barriers to exit to ensure a continuous stream of revenue from existing customers. These barriers might include proprietary formats, unique configurations, or hefty termination fees.

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Email Archiving Best Practices

Archiving your emails is a smart move, both for personal and professional reasons. It helps you stay organized and keeps you compliant if you’re working in a regulated industry.

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Archiving Keeps You Organized, Marketing Gets You Noticed

Email archiving is like your company’s memory, neatly keeping track of every conversation for when you need it most. But you also need an engine for growth to drive customer engagement and sales. This is where Campaign Refinery shines. When you decide to venture into email marketing, we’re the experts you need. 

Want to send emails that spark interest and get you more engagement?