Small Business

9 Reasons to Take Advantage of Gmail's Archive Feature

By Rick Broida

Updated on: April 23, 2008 / 3:10 PM EDT / MoneyWatch

If you're a Gmail user (like me) who's never really bothered with Gmail's Archive feature (like me), check out the Official Gmail Blog's list of 9 reasons you should archive. A sampling:

Phone numbers and addresses You never know when you'll need a phone number someone emailed you or an address that was in a signature.
Procrastination Sometimes you want to get a message out of your inbox, but you don't want to deal with organization, and you don't want to trash it.
Posterity Just because you're not famous now doesn't mean that in forty years (or fifteen minutes) you won't want to write your memoir.

Okay, so the author has her tongue planted somewhere near her cheek. But it's still good advice to put the Archive to good use. (In case you're unfamiliar with it, the Archive is simply a Gmail storage box where you can preserve messages you no longer want in your inbox.) Do you use it? If not, why? I've got no good excuse except that I still prefer those old-fashioned folder thingies.