How to Archive Outlook Emails
By archiving emails, you can remove unimportant messages from your inbox. You can archive both single and multiple emails in the desktop, web, and mobile versions of Microsoft Outlook. We’ll show you how.
Note that archiving an email does not delete the email. Your email will be moved to a special archive folder. Later you can dearchive the email to bring it back to your inbox as we will explain below.
TIED TOGETHER: The best way to organize your e-mails: just archive them
Archive Outlook emails to desktop
To move the non-essential emails from your inbox to the archive folder, start by launching the Outlook app on your computer.
In the Outlook inbox, find and select the emails you want to archive. To select more than one email, hold down the Ctrl key on your keyboard and then click the emails.
After selecting the emails, select “Archive” at the top of the Outlook Home tab.
Outlook will immediately move your selected emails to the Archive folder and you are done.
If you want to view all your archived emails, click on “Archive” in the folder list on the left. All your archived emails are displayed in the right pane.
To dearchive an email (move the email back to the inbox), right-click that email in the Archive folder and select Move > Inbox.
To declutter your inbox on the web, start by launching your favorite web browser on your computer and opening Outlook for the web. Sign in to your account on the website if you haven’t already.
On the main Outlook screen, select the emails you want to archive. To select multiple emails, click the round icon next to each email.
After selecting the emails, select “Archive” from the Outlook menu bar at the top.
Your selected emails will be archived. If you want to undo your action at this point, click Undo on the notification that appears at the bottom of your screen.
You can view all your archived emails by selecting the “Archive” folder in the Outlook folder list on the left.
If you want to move (unarchive) an email back to your inbox, select that email and choose Move to > Inbox at the top.
If you’re using a smartphone, first launch the Outlook app on your phone.
In the app, tap and hold the email you want to archive. To add multiple emails to your selection, tap them in the list.
After selecting the emails, tap the “Archive” icon (it’s to the left of the three dots) in the upper-right corner of Outlook.
Your selected emails are now archived. To quickly get them back to your inbox, tap “Undo” on the message that opens at the bottom of your phone’s screen.
You can see all your archived emails by tapping your profile icon in the top left corner and selecting the “Archive” folder.
Dearchiving emails is also easy. To do this, select your emails, tap the three dots in the top right corner and select “Move to Folder”.
Select your inbox or another folder to move your archived emails.
And you’re done.
Archiving is a great way to clean up your inbox without deleting emails, so use it to separate finished and unwanted emails in your account.
Did you know Outlook can automatically archive your emails if you want?
TIED TOGETHER: What is AutoArchive in Outlook and how does it work?