How To Archive Emails Properly-Easy And Affective Methods

Emails are essential for today’s communication. Whether you run a business or not, it is important for you to manage your emails both personally and organizationally. However, sometimes emails in your inbox can take up a lot of space, and you may not have the necessary space needed for important emails. Which is why email archiving is necessary. Today, we will show you how you can archive emails properly with a few more important points.

What is Email Archiving?

The systematic process of preserving and storing email messages and their attachments in a secure and searchable manner for long-term retention is known as email archiving.  It is more than just saving emails in a folder. It’s a structured approach to safeguarding data, facilitating compliance, and enabling quick retrieval of information.

Why Should You Archive Emails?

Email archiving is important for both you and your business. It is an essential part of business communication and record-keeping. A huge pile of emails can quickly become overwhelming, making it difficult to manage and retrieve important information. Here are a few reasons why archiving emails is necessary:

• Data Retention: Archiving protects emails from accidental deletion or corruption, making sure that important information remains accessible and secure.
• Compliance: Many industries have legal requirements for email retention. Archiving helps organizations meet these requirements, reducing the risk of penalties and legal issues.
• E-Discovery: Archiving emails enables e-discovery, the process of identifying, locating, and producing relevant electronic information for legal proceedings.
• Storage Management: By archiving older emails, you can free up storage space on the email server, improving its performance and efficiency.
• Improved Network Performance: Having less data on the primary server can improve network performance when searching, downloading, forwarding, or sending emails.
• Disaster Recovery: Email archives can be utilized to restore emails in the event of a system failure or natural disaster, minimizing downtime and ensuring business continuity.
• Organizational Knowledge: Archived emails can serve as a valuable repository of organizational knowledge, allowing employees to access past communications and decisions.
• Others: Besides these, archiving emails can also improve organization and efficiency, simplify server upgrades and migrations, reduce server load, etc.

When Should You Archive Emails?

You should archive emails when they are no longer needed in your inbox, but you want to retain them for future reference or compliance reasons.

Archive the emails with completed tasks, finished email threads, newsletters, or promotional emails you don’t need anymore. If you have emails that contain information you may need in the future but not regularly, archive them. 

Also, delete the spam or junk emails, short replies that don’t contain valuable information or attachments, and emails with irrelevant information. By doing this, you can maintain storage for important emails on your device.

How to Archive Emails Properly on your Desktop

We have already talked about what archiving emails is and why it is necessary. Now let’s show you in detail how you can archive emails properly on your desktop:

Step 1- Log in to your Gmail Account

You need to enter Gmail first. Here’s how:

• Open any browser on your computer and open Gmail.
• Enter your phone number or email address and your password to log in to your Gmail account.

Step 2- Identify the Emails to Archive

Now, you have to identify the emails you want to archive and choose them.

• Go through the emails carefully and find the messages that you find unnecessary and you won’t need anymore, or at least in the near future.
• Select those emails.

Step 3- Archive the Emails

The last step is finally archiving the emails. Here’s how it’s done:

• Find the archive option at the top of the emails, under the search bar.
• Click on it, and the emails you have selected will be archived.

How to Archive Emails Properly on your Mobile

You can access your emails through your mobile phone as well. Here is how you can archive emails on your mobile:

Step 1- Open the Gmail App

Unlike your desktop, you won’t need to open your browser to access your emails on your phone. Here’s how you can do so:

• Find the Gmail app on your mobile and click on it.
• Open Gmail to continue with your login process.

Step 2- Sign in to your Account

Now, you have to sign in to your Gmail account to access your emails. Here’s how:

• Sign in to your account.
• Enter your email address or phone number to log in to your account.

Step 3- Identifying the Messages to Archive

Now that you have signed in to your account, identify and select the messages you want to archive. Here’s how it’s done:

• Look for the emails you won’t need for the time being and the emails which are unnecessary.
• Press and hold on their icon until they get selected (on the left). In this way, select all the messages you want to archive.

Step 3- Archiving the Emails

And now the final step, archive the emails you have selected. Here’s how it’s done:

• Find the archive icon at the top of the emails.
• Click on it, and the emails you have selected will be archived.

Avoid Doing These in Archiving Emails

You need to be careful to effectively manage your Gmail inbox and archives. There are a lot of common mistakes that people make when archiving messages, which result in big losses as well. Here are a few common mistakes to avoid while archiving emails:

• Avoid Over-Archiving: Don’t archive everything. Archiving can help declutter your inbox, but be careful that you don’t over-archive and only archive emails when you are done with them and don’t need them anymore. 
• Don’t Rely on Filters too much: Review filters regularly. Gmail filters can be helpful for automatic archiving, but make sure they are set up correctly and don’t inadvertently archive important messages. Don’t rely solely on filters, as they should not be the primary method for archiving. Also, use manual archiving for better control.

• Avoid Excessive Labeling: Use labels sparingly. While labels are useful for organization, over-labeling can lead to emails getting accidentally moved to the archive due to incorrectly configured filters. Consider alternatives and explore other Gmail features like labels, snooze, or deleting messages as alternatives to archiving.

• Check and Manage Filters: Access filters. Go to Gmail Settings > Filters and Blocked Addresses. Review and modify: Review existing filters and modify or delete any that might be causing unwanted archiving.

• Mobile App Settings and Actions: Change swipe actions. In the mobile app, you can customize swipe actions to delete, archive, or perform other actions. Also, you should disable the automatic archiving feature in the mobile app.
• Avoid the “Send & Archive” Button: The “Send & Archive” button automatically moves the email to your archive after sending, which can be helpful, but be careful about using it when you just want to send a reply without archiving. If you accidentally use it, you can always find the archived email under “All Mail” in your Gmail sidebar.
• Know the Difference between Archiving and Deleting: Archiving an email moves it to the “All Mail” folder, but it remains accessible. Deleting an email permanently removes it from your account, unless you have a recent backup or recovery option.

How To Find Archived Emails

You may need to find the messages you have archived for various known or unknown reasons. Here’s how you can retrieve your archived emails:

Step 1- Access All Mail

You have to open all emails in your Gmail account to find your archived emails. Here’s how it’s done:

• You will see a main menu bar on the top left corner, click on it.
• After the click, you will see the All Mail option, which you have to access as shown below:

Step 2- Find the Archived Email

Now you have to find the specific email you want to retrieve. Here’s how it’s done:

• Use the search bar to find specific archived emails by typing keywords, sender, date, or subject.
• If you don’t know the specific details, scroll through the “All Mail” to locate the desired email.

Conclusion

Archiving emails is important, both personally and for your work purposes. Important emails may get lost in the huge pile of emails your account receives every day. As we have shown you above, you can archive your emails efficiently following these guidelines on both your computer and your mobile.

However, you should also be careful in archiving emails and make sure that you don’t archive important messages along with the ones you need to archive. But it’s still good that you can always retrieve your archived emails, as by deleting them, you will lose them forever.

Need more advice for your professional activities? Never hesitate to reach out to us for more active and effective guidelines for growing your business!