text: who knows in gmail what is the use of the option "archive" in the inbox folder? i was in my gmail inbox and i checked one mail and then the option archive, know i can not see the email, where is it? okay archive means it is archiving the email from the inbox..  to take advantage of google search, and reduce the time you spend organizing your inbox, archive your conversations. archived messages and conversations are stored in all mail, and are available when you search your account.  so when you check the option archive, it goes to all mail.  archive is usefull if you have labels. if you label your messages it is a total mess having your inbox with 10000 messages. all mail does that. inbox is what you have incomming , recieving.  so when you finished reading a message, apply a label to it, and then archive it to be hidden from inbox. and it will be shown in the label.  so if you want it to be shown in inbox again, goto all mail and select the option move to inbox.  thats it