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Archived emails aren’t deleted. They live in All Mail and keep every label except Inbox, which is what archiving removes. To bring one back, find it and apply Inbox (or any other label) to it.

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Find the email

Three reliable ways:
  • Search. Press / and type any part of the subject, sender, or body. Search covers archived mail by default.
  • All Mail view. Click All Mail in the left sidebar (or press g a). This shows every thread in the account, archived or not.
  • A label view. If you remember the label (Newsletter, Billing, a custom one), open that label from the sidebar; archived mail with that label still appears there.
Search results showing an archived email

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Restore to Inbox

Open the thread (or select it from the list) and:
  • Press e to toggle Inbox back on.
  • Or right-click the thread and choose Move to Inbox.
  • Or open the thread and click Move to Inbox in the header.
The thread returns to the Inbox view immediately and the importance label sorting still applies.
Right-click menu showing Move to Inbox option

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Restore multiple emails at once

Select multiple threads from any list view (x to toggle selection on each, or click the checkboxes), then press e. Every selected thread comes back to Inbox in one action. The same selection works from search results, so you can search by sender and restore everything from one person in two keystrokes.
For very large restores (say, “everything from this sender in the last 90 days”), ask the agent. Open the AI Agent with Cmd+Shift+L and say “restore every email from alex@example.com to my inbox.”

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Apply a different label

If you don’t want the email back in Inbox but want it filed under a different label:
1

Open the thread

Or select multiple threads.
2

Press l

The label picker opens. Type to filter.
3

Pick a label

Press Enter. The label is applied immediately. You can apply more than one.
To remove the current label without adding a new one, press e from any label view to take the thread out of that label.

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Drag and drop

On desktop, you can drag a thread from any list view onto a label or Inbox in the left sidebar. The thread moves to that destination (or, if you hold Option, gets the label added without removing the current one).
Dragging a thread onto a label in the sidebar
Drag and drop is desktop-only. On mobile, use the swipe-left action menu and pick Move to → Inbox or the label you want.

Search overview

Find archived mail quickly.

Inbox views

All Mail, label views, and filters.

Batch processing

Operate on many threads at once.

Keyboard shortcuts

Every shortcut Slashy supports.

Importance labels

How threads get sorted into tabs.