Google Mail - Understanding and Using Archive

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Knowing about and using the Archive button in your email is one key to keeping your Inbox under control.  When looking at an email message, OR if you have checked next to an email in your inbox, you have several options at the top, the Archive icon is the very first one (which should clue you in to the fact it is important!)



Using the Archive, means having at least a basic understanding for what it does. 

Here it my very simplified explanation I provide in my trainings:
Google uses a "label" system instead of a "folder" system.  With a folder system (what many of us trained to with programs such as Outlook...and even before electronic mail when dealing with paper mail), mail is stored in a specific location - it can be in 1 location, and 1 location only.  So you need to remember where you "put" it.  
Whereas a "label" system deals with (essentially) sticky note labels "attached" to emails.  I can put as many - or as few - labels as I want on each email I deal with.  All emails sit in the same location, I just "call" which ones I see by searching for labels (or other details related to the email such as who sent it, words in it, etc).  So, as an example, any of the bold emails in your inbox have 2 labels - one that marks it as unread (which makes it bold) and another that says it should be in your inbox. 
Once you have an understanding of this, Archiving in Google world makes sense.  When you Archive in Google Mail, you are stripping ALL labels off the email.  It is still in your email account, it just no longer has an Inbox label...so does not appear there.  You can always find it by searching (you might find this post on How to Find What You Want When You Want It useful if searching frustrates you).

I talk with a LOT of educators who routinely have tens of thousands emails in their Inbox (I believe the worst I have seen to date is over 75,000). Most of these educators know that they have to be compliant with state record retention laws, so do not want to delete emails that potentially fall under that...yet don't know about Archiving. 

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