What is Archive in Yahoo Mail?
With its archiving features, Yahoo Mail ranks among the top five most popular email service providers globally. But what does archive mean in Yahoo Mail?
In Yahoo Mail, archiving means using the Archive folder as a "special drawer" where you can move your messages to keep your inbox tidy. It's a safekeeping place to store email messages without permanent deletion.
When you archive emails, you essentially:
- Keep your Inbox organized by preventing it from serving two purposes simultaneously—as a destination for new email messages and a place where old messages are stored.
- Implement Inbox Zero, a popular email management approach that aims to keep the inbox empty or almost empty at all times.
Although Yahoo Mail offers 1TB of free storage, emails can accumulate quickly. Let's look into the various steps to avoid wasting space in your Yahoo email archive.
How to Archive Yahoo Mail on Desktop
Yahoo maintains two separate versions of its web interface, which most desktop users rely on when accessing their inboxes.
Using the Standard Version of Yahoo Mail:
- Go to https://mail.yahoo.com/.
- Login with your email address and password.
- Click the checkbox next to the message you want to be archived. You can select multiple messages at the same time.
- Click the Archive button -
![Desktop logo]()
- in the toolbar. - The selected messages will be moved from your Inbox to the Archive folder.
- in the toolbar.
Since most modern email services have a similar user interface, the same steps also roughly correspond to how to archive in Outlook.
Using the Basic Mail interface:
- Go to https://mail.yahoo.com/ and sign in to your account.
- Click the checkbox next to the message you want to be archived. You can select multiple messages at the same time.
- Click the Actions dropdown menu and select the Archive option.
- Click Apply.
- The selected messages will be moved to the archive folder.
How to Archive Yahoo Emails on Mobile
You can use the mobile app for Android and iOS devices to archive Yahoo Mail messages on the go. Here's how:
- Launch the app on your Android or iOS device.
- Open the message you want to be archived.
- Tap ••• More and select the Archive option.
To unarchive a message using the mobile app, you only need to move it back to your Inbox folder.
- Click the Inbox icon at the bottom.
- Select the Archive folder.
- Select the messages you want restored and click Move → Inbox.
💡 Note: Your Android or iPhone mail archive is stored on Yahoo's servers, so you don't have to worry about it occupying precious storage space on your device.
Our recommendation:
Since your smartphone is likely always accessible, organize your messages as soon as they arrive. The longer you let them sit in your inbox, the more likely you are to forget about them. The Yahoo app can display inboxes from other email service providers, offering another way to find archived emails in Gmail, Outlook, or AOL, to name a few major providers.
Additionally, on your smartphone, you can use the Clean Email app, which can quickly and easily organize your mailbox from anywhere, on the go. Read on to learn more about it.How to Auto Archive Emails in Yahoo Mail
Once you archive Yahoo Mail, you'll notice recurring messages, such as finance emails and digital invoices. You’ll have to move them repeatedly, which can be time-consuming. Unfortunately, Yahoo doesn’t archive your old emails automatically. However, you can select and send incoming mail to the Archive folder by creating Yahoo filter rules.
Another great way to automate archived Yahoo messages—making it work faster with several other benefits—is through Clean Email.
How to Use Clean Email for Yahoo Mail Archiving
Clean Email comes in handy when you want to organize your emails fast and automate archiving in a few clicks. Let's illustrate how it works with an example.
Let's say you want to archive all emails from a particular sender and want it to be applied to all future similar emails. Here's what you need to do:
- Go to https://app.clean.email/ and sign up for free, or log in with your email account.
- Go to the Inbox folder and select any message from the sender whose emails you want archived.
- Click the Create rule button in the blue toolbar.
- Once a pop-up window appears, choose the Archive action in the dropdown menu under Apply Action.
- Switch the toggle on, so the rule is applied to the existing messages.
- Click the Create Rule button.
From now on, all messages from the sender will be archived automatically, allowing you to enjoy a cleaner inbox without spending much time managing it.
Instructing Clean Email to archive all messages of a certain type is as easy as automatically archiving messages from one sender. For example, you can create a rule to send all Emails older than 1 year to Archive.
You can view running rules in the Auto Clean section and set new ones here to archive more emails or perform other actions.
If you’re unsure about which emails to archive yet want to quickly declutter your inbox, Clean Email offers a solution — Cleaning Suggestions. This tool provides recommendations for cleaning up groups of emails at once.
You can move messages you no longer need to the Archive, trash them, or mark them as spam with just a click. These suggestions are based on emails you’ve previously cleaned or those commonly cleaned up by others.
Clean Email simplifies Yahoo's process of archiving emails. It reduces inbox clutter, saving valuable time through bulk archiving and improving email management efficiency.
How to Find Archived Emails in Yahoo
There are several options to find Yahoo archive messages:
- Through the search bar: Type keywords, names, or dates matching your archived emails. For more options, click Advanced and enter additional details.
- Via the Archive folder: Select the folder in the left sidebar of your page and scroll through to find the specific email you want, or use the Sort dropdown menu to simplify the process.
Moreover, you can access archived messages through Clean Email’s Archive folder, which is easier to navigate because all messages can be grouped and sorted according to your preferences.
How to Archive Yahoo Mail to Hard Drive
The Yahoo Mail Archiver feature separates important messages from junk and low-value notifications, but your emails still technically remain in Yahoo's servers. Considering the company's history of data breaches and cybersecurity incidents, it's also a good idea to archive Yahoo mail to a hard drive.
There are various email archiving solutions from third-party software developers that make this easy, such as the SysTools Yahoo! mail backup utility for Windows and Mac.
You can also download email messages using a mail client with POP support, such as Microsoft Outlook. However, the process is considerably more complicated.
How to Retrieve Archived Emails in Yahoo
Retrieving an email from a Yahoo mail archiver is straightforward:
- Open the Archive folder.
- Select an email or multiple emails you want to unarchive.
- Move the archived message to your inbox by
- Clicking the Restore to Inbox button — in Yahoo Standard Version.
- Clicking the Actions dropdown menu and selecting the 'Inbox' option under Move to — in Yahoo Basic Mail.
Alternatively, you can retrieve old or archived messages through Clean Email's Archive folder:
- Go to https://app.clean.email/ and log in with your email account.
- Scroll down the left-hand menu to Mailbox and select the Archive folder.
- Search for the specific email(s) you want to retrieve. If you can't find the email quickly, search by sender, dates, keywords, or even subject lines.
- Click the arrow next to Trash on the right and choose Move to Inbox. This will put your archived emails into your primary Yahoo Mail inbox.
How Clean Email Makes Managing Yahoo Emails Easier
Manually going through your Yahoo archive folder is a good start to decluttering, but to truly master the art of the Yahoo mail archive, use the Clean Email app and take your organizational skills to the next level.
Clean Email recognizes different types of emails and automatically groups them into Smart Folders. You can see all messages sent by financial services providers, online retailers, social media platforms, and so on. Here, you can easily select and archive messages in bundles.
The Unsubscriber feature can scan and assess whether an email is a subscription and lets you opt out with a single click. Clean Email also has Smart Folders that automatically sort and categorize your emails.
All these and other features are designed to focus on privacy and security. With Clean Email, Android, iOS, Windows, and Mac mail archiving has never been more accessible.
How to Archive Yahoo Mail - FAQs
How to archive emails in Yahoo Mail on desktop?
To archive emails in Yahoo Mail, log in to your account, select the emails you want to move, and click the Archive button in the toolbar. The messages will then be moved from your Inbox to the archived emails folder.
What happens to archived Yahoo Mail?
When you archive a message in Yahoo Mail, the message is moved from your Inbox to the Archive folder. You can keep it archived indefinitely or move it back to your Inbox or some other folder at any point.
How do I archive Yahoo Mail to a hard drive?
There are various third-party tools that make it easy to archive Yahoo Mail to a hard drive, and you can also connect to your email account using any POP email client to accomplish the same.
How long do archived emails stay in Yahoo?
Archived emails stay in the folder indefinitely, making the Yahoo email archiving feature great for preserving important messages and their attachments.
How do I get rid of the archive in Yahoo Mail?
Unfortunately, you cannot delete the Yahoo Mail Archive folder because it is part of their system folders. However, you can delete the messages within it and remove the filters and rules that direct your messages to that folder.
