There’s a reason Gmail is the most popular email service. It works on computers, Chromebooks, iPhones, Android phones, and top tablets. It integrates with the robust Google Workspace, makes full use of Google’s best-in-class search capabilities, and always adds cool new features.

One of its cool features is archiving emails, which was available when Gmail launched in 2007. The archive option can come in handy to clean up your busy Gmail inbox. You can archive old and unnecessary emails and remove clutter from the main inbox. Gmail doesn’t delete archived emails. They are readily available to access when you need them.

The way Gmail used to archive emails

When Gmail was new, archiving emails worked like moving an email to a different folder. The email disappeared from the inbox and would be visible in the readily accessible archive folder. The only difference between archiving an email and moving it to another folder was the prominence of the archive button, both in the inbox and within an individual email.

Users could find their archived emails in one of two ways. They could either open the archive folder or search for it in the search bar at the top of the page. An “archive” label was easily found in the advanced search options if they wanted to search only the archive.

For those who want to browse archived emails, the folder is no longer readily available, and the archive label no longer appears in Gmail’s list of labels. Removing these two features seemed to force users to hunt down individual emails by remembering keywords to place in the search bar.

This is not the case. It’s still possible to browse all your archived emails without searching for each one individually.

How Google archives email today

Even though archived emails don’t appear in your inbox, and the archive label isn’t readily available, the emails still appear when you search for them. Any archived email that contains a search term automatically shows up alongside the unarchived emails. Gmail comes with advanced search filters to find any message in no time. Check our dedicated post to learn more about Gmail’s advanced search filters.

You can also hunt down archived emails using Gmail’s search operators. Gmail’s search bar is a marvel when it comes to advanced search operators. You can search by sender, recipient, date, label, category, attachment, and more. There’s no shortage of operator combinations that will return all your archived emails and nothing else.

However, it’s not necessary to enter these complicated search terms. Even though you can’t see the Archive label in its regular locations, the Google search bar still recognizes it. To take advantage of this, enter the following text into Gmail’s search bar:

in:archive

Type that in, run the search, and you’ll see all your archived emails.

Find archive emails in All Mail inbox

You can find archive emails from the Gmail All Mail inbox. Here’s what you’ll do:

1. Visit Gmail on the web.
2. Select All Mail from the left sidebar.
3. The Inbox label appears beside your main emails. Emails without labels are archived messages.

4. Hover the cursor over such messages to see a deactivated archive icon.

Basic search filters

If you want to find a specific email instead of only seeing all the emails you saved, use Google’s search tools. To do this, click the filter icon next to the search bar. This gives you options to help you find your email.

• From: Find emails by who sent them. Senders can be searched by their name and their email address.
• To: Find emails by the person the email was sent to (usually only helpful when searching for emails you sent yourself).
• Subject: Search only for words in the email’s subject line rather than across the entire email.
• Has the Words: Search for words you know are in the email.
• Doesn’t have: Remove every email that contains certain words from the search results.
• Size: Choose the size of the email you’re searching for. You can choose a maximum or a minimum size.
• Date within: Choose a date range in which the email was sent or received.
• Search: A drop-down box where you choose the inbox, outbox, folder, tab, or label to search.
• Has attachment: Check this box if the email you’re searching for has an attachment.
• Don’t include chats: Remove all chat logs from the search results.

Find archive emails in Gmail on phone

Gmail offers feature-rich mobile apps on Android and iPhone. You may accidentally archive emails on Gmail mobile as the default left or right gestures are set to archive messages. Here’s how you can find such messages on Gmail mobile:

1. Launch Gmail on your phone.
2. Gmail’s advanced search filters don’t work on mobile apps. Tap the three horizontal lines at the top and go to All mail inbox.
3. Your important emails have the Inbox label. The archive messages don’t carry such a label.

4. You can also search for an email with the sender’s name at the top and look for archived emails.
5. If you want to move an archived email to the main inbox, open it. Tap the three-dot menu at the top and select Move to Inbox.

6. Repeat the same for all your important emails and move them to the main inbox for easy access.

Check your archived emails on the go

Archiving emails in Gmail doesn’t affect the storage. If you are low on Gmail space, check our dedicated guide to free up storage in Gmail. You can also subscribe to one of the Google One plans to unlock more space for your account.