A very useful and convenient feature of WhatsApp that few use on the phone is the chat archive. Archiving in WhatsApp basically means putting aside a conversation or a series of messages that we do not intend to continue, which could also be canceled only after a long time (in case we want to resume or keep a chat for a certain period of time).
In a practical sense, storing a chat in WhatsApp means hiding it from the app, resulting in fact invisible, but without deleting it and with the possibility in the case of recovering that chat and being able to re-read or reuse it to send messages.
In this guide we will show you how to store WhatsApp chats on Android and iPhone, also showing you the steps to be taken in order to access the archived chats to restore or read them.
How to store WhatsApp chat on Android
In WhatsApp you cannot archive a single message in a conversation, but only archive an entire chat that can be individual or group .To store chat in WhatsApp on Android we touch and hold on a conversation in the main screen and then press on the top of the storage button, which looks like a box with an arrow down.
The chat will be immediately archived and will disappear among those present on the main screen of the app.
If in the meantime you receive messages from the archived chat, they will be immediately reported as a notification and you can immediately access the chat to reply or view the new content. If you reply to the archived chat it will immediately be brought to the foreground leaving the archived ones; if you do a global search in messages or in the app, archived chats will also be included in the search.
How to store WhatsApp chat on iPhone
On the iPhone, storing a chat is even easier, since we will only have to open the WhatsApp app, tap on the chat and then swipe your finger to the left.
Making a light swipe we will see the Archive button appear, to be used to archive the chat; if instead we perform the quick swipe, the chat will be immediately archived without any window or button to press. Note that swiping it to the right eliminates the conversation forever, so it's best not to get confused.
Regarding archived chats, it should be noted that if you receive a message, this will notify you, but the conversation will still remain between the archived ones. On the other hand, if you reply or go to send a new message in a chat inside the archive, then it returns to its normal position and automatically exits among the archived ones. When searching for messages, archived chats are still included.
How to find archived chats
After archiving a conversation, you will have a few seconds to cancel the operation by pressing the Cancel button at the bottom. Archived chats, as you can see, are hidden and disappear from view.The way to view archived WhatsApp chats is different on iPhone and Android.
On the iPhone, to find and reread the archived conversations you just have to go to the top of the chat list and then touch the screen and swipe down with your finger.
In practice the archives are to be discovered at the top, above the last message arrived.
To find the chats stored on Android, however, you have to scroll down the list of conversations to the last line where the item Archived appears with the number of those present in the section, so you can view the archived chats.
From the list of archived chats, just send a new message to return the conversation to the main list or you can swipe the conversation to the left (iPhone) or hold down on the chat (Android) to be able to extract the conversation and actually remove it from the archived ones ; the extracted chats will reappear in the main screen placed in chronological order from the last message, so if we write to each other or receive messages it will return to the top of the others.
How to archive all chats
If we are looking for a nice way to tidy up WhatsApp chats in case you have too long and confused a list of groups and conversations, we can archive all the chats present and write only on those we want to be present on the screen, leaving those conversations hidden long since abandoned.To do this we go to Settings> Chat> Store all on iPhone or we touch the button with three dots at the top right and we go to Settings> Chat> Chat History (on Android) then we press the button Store all chats .
In this way we will be able to start over and pass only the chats that suit us, ignoring those that have not received messages for months or even years!
Conclusions
Archiving messages in WhatsApp is very useful for ordering and removing chats that we don't want to delete immediately. The archiving method is very useful even if we are looking for a way to quickly and easily hide WhatsApp chats, so as not to leave them in view on the screen when using our phone (which we should never allow anyway). As an alternative to archiving, we can protect access to WhatsApp with a password, as seen also in our guide How to protect WhatsApp by blocking access with a password .Archiving messages in WhatsApp has a different meaning than that of saving WhatsApp chats to keep them in a backup, since by making a backup we will keep the messages and chats also in case of change of phone or in case of theft or loss of the smartphone, as seen also in the App guide to find your stolen or lost mobile phone .
