How to Archive or Unarchive a Group Chat

When a group chat or activity feed has run its course, you can archive it. Archiving removes everyone from the chat and stops new messages, but nothing is deleted. An admin can restore it at any time, along with everyone who was in it.

📦 What Happens When a Chat Is Archived

Everyone is removed from the chat, including its managers.
No one can send messages, reply, react, or change the chat's settings.
The full message history and settings are kept. Nothing is deleted.
The chat disappears from everyone's inbox, the same as if they had all left.
No one is notified that the chat was archived.

🔐 Who Can Archive or Unarchive

Archive: the chat's managers, or admins with the All Members permission.
Unarchive: only admins with the All Members permission, since no one else can see the chat once it's archived.

🗂️ Which Chats Can Be Archived

Group chats started with the New Chat button (not tied to a screen) have an Archive chat button in Chat Info. See the steps below, or Managing a Group Chat You Started for everything else you can do in Chat Info.
Group chats and activity feeds that live on a screen don't have an Archive button. Instead, deleting the screen archives its chat automatically. See How to Delete a Screen.

💡 If two screens point to the same chat, deleting one of them won't archive it. The chat is only archived once no screen uses it.

🗄️ How to Archive a Group Chat

Open the group chat.
Tap the ⓘ info icon in the top right to open Chat Info.
Scroll down to Danger Zone and tap Archive chat.

Tap Archive to confirm.

💡 If you're an admin, you'll stay in the chat and see that it's now archived. If you're a chat manager without admin access, you'll be taken out of the chat, the same as if you had left.

📍 How to Find Archived Chats (Admins)

Tap the chat bubble 💬 in the top left of the home screen to open Messages.
Tap the All Group Chats tab. See How Admins Can See All Group Chats and Activity Feeds.
Tap Archived at the top of the list.

💡 The Active and Archived buttons only appear once at least one chat has been archived. Archived chats show an archive icon next to the date.

↩️ How to Unarchive a Group Chat (Admins)

Open the archived chat from Messages → All Group Chats → Archived. You can read the full history.
At the bottom, where the message box would normally be, tap Unarchive.

Tap Unarchive to confirm.

💡 Everyone who was in the chat when it was archived is added back, along with anyone who would have been added since. They can send messages again right away. No one is notified that the chat was unarchived.

❓ Good to Know

Archiving isn't deleting. To remove individual messages instead, see How to Delete Messages.
Archived chats are hidden from inboxes, notifications, and member counts until they're unarchived.
Just want to step away from a chat? Use Leave chat in Chat Info instead. Archiving affects everyone.