WhatsApp: everything you need to know about archiving chats

WhatsApp offers many features to manage these messages and other conversations. Archiving, for example, is very interesting. Here’s how it works and how to take advantage of it.

WhatsApp is one of the most popular instant messaging services today. Since its launch, the platform has continued to roll out features to deliver a successful, smooth, and highly intuitive experience. Messaging is an important part of our life. These conversations should be taken care of. And each service has its own little tricks. In WhatsApp, one of them is completely unknown, but very useful – this is archiving. Why archive? How to do? We tell you everything.

What is archiving in WhatsApp?

If you’ve ever used archiving on Gmail or Instagram, you’ll already be familiar with the concept, as WhatsApp has the same thing: it removes the chat from the main window, but doesn’t delete it. You can unzip and access the conversation at any time.

Both individual and group chats can be archived, but a single message, part, or chat file cannot be archived. It’s all talk or nothing.

What can you do when a conversation is archived?

As soon as the conversation is archived, it disappears, as we have already said, from the main view. If you receive messages in this chat, you will be notified and the conversation thread will return to the main view. It will automatically unzip unless you specify another operation in the settings.

If you archive a chat, other people will not be notified. The same is true when you delete a chat. This also means that it is impossible to know if one of the participants has archived your discussion. Please note that archiving a chat does not affect your online status either. If you are online, archived conversations will also show up online.

Where to find archived conversations

Archived discussions are stored separately. On Android, scroll down the home screen where you’ll find the option to access archived conversations. On an iPhone, go to the “Chats”tab and at the top you’ll find “Archived Chats”. On the web, click the three dots icon and select Archived from the menu.

How to archive/unarchive a chat

On Android, just press and hold on a chat. Then, in the options that appear at the top, we must click on the “Archive”icon. On iPhone, simply swipe from right to left on the conversation and then tap Archive. On the web, hover over the discussion, click the down arrow, and then click Archive.

Note that it is also possible to archive all conversations at once. The option is only available on Android and iOS. In Google OS, tap the three dots icon in the top right corner, select “Settings”. Then click Chats, then Chat History. Finally, select “Archive all discussions”. On iOS, open WhatsApp and go to Settings. Click Chats and then Archive All Chats.

To unzip a conversation on Android, press and hold the conversation, then tap the Unzip option. On iPhone, swipe the chat from right to left, then tap Unzip. On the web, hover over the conversation you want to unarchive, click the down arrow and unzip.

Archiving or deleting, what’s the difference?

Deleting an archived conversation is the same as deleting an unarchived conversation.

The “Archive”function is only used to hide messages from the main list. You can unzip it to return it to its main view. On the other hand, when deleting, the operation is permanent. Once the chat is deleted, you will not be able to restore it. Pay attention.