Archiving and pinning chats on WhatsApp Business: how to keep what matters at the top
Published on October 21, 2026
Once a business’s WhatsApp gets past a few dozen chats a day, the list turns into a pile.
The customer who paid yesterday ends up under the family group, the supplier disappears behind ten quotes, and the chat that needs an answer today gets lost.
Archiving and pinning are the app’s own tools for sorting this out.
The rules below come from the WhatsApp Help Center and apply to both the regular app and WhatsApp Business.
Archiving: out of sight, not deleted
Under the official page about archiving chats (Android), archiving hides a chat from the Chats tab and keeps it in a folder called Archived, at the top of the list.
The chat isn’t deleted: everything stays there, and you can open the folder whenever you want.
Archiving isn’t a backup either.
The same official page (Android) notes that an archived chat isn’t backed up to your SD card.
To keep your history safe, see our post on WhatsApp Business backup.
How to archive
On Android, under the official page about archiving chats (Android), tap and hold the chat in the Chats tab and tap the archive icon at the top of the screen.
To archive everything at once, go to Settings, Chats, Chat history and Archive all chats.
On iPhone, under the iPhone version of the same page, swipe left on the chat and tap Archive.
To archive everything, go to Settings, Chats and Archive all chats.
The customer wrote again. Now what?
This is what catches most businesses off guard.
Under the official page about archiving chats (Android), an archived chat stays archived by default when a new message arrives.
And you won’t get a notification for it unless someone mentions you or replies directly to one of your messages in a group.
The same page says you can’t change notifications for archived chats.
In practice, a customer you archived after a sale can come back with a complaint and get no answer.
The only sign, according to the official page (Android), is the number next to the Archived folder, which shows how many archived chats have unread messages.
To avoid this, turn off Keep chats archived.
Under the official page (Android), go to Settings, Chats and turn off Keep chats archived.
On iPhone, under the iPhone version, it’s Settings, Chats and the same option.
With it off, a chat leaves the archive on its own when a new message comes in.
How to unarchive
Under the official page (Android), scroll to the top of the Chats tab, tap Archived, tap and hold the chat and tap the unarchive icon.
On iPhone, under the iPhone version, open Archived, swipe left on the chat and tap Unarchive.
You can also find the chat with the search bar and unarchive it from there.
Pinning: three at the top, at most
Pinning is the opposite of archiving: instead of moving a chat out of the way, it keeps it at the top of the list.
The official page about pinning chats (Android) says you can pin up to three chats.
On Android, under the same page (Android), tap and hold the chat, tap the three dots and Pin, choose how long the pin should last and tap Pin again.
On iPhone, under the iPhone version, tap and hold the chat, tap More and Pin, and choose how long it lasts.
To remove a pin, follow the same steps and tap Unpin.
Since the official limit is three, choose carefully.
For a small shop, it usually makes sense to pin the team group, the main supplier and the customer with the most urgent order of the day, and swap that last one as the day goes on.
A simple way to use both
- Pin what needs watching all day.
- Archive what’s done: delivered orders, declined quotes, resolved chats.
- Leave Keep chats archived turned off, so a returning customer shows up in your list.
- To sort customers by stage, like new, awaiting payment or delivered, use lists, which we cover in our post on WhatsApp Business labels.
Where we come in
Archiving and pinning tidy up the list, but someone still has to answer every chat.
We set up and run the assistant on your business number, with the business content at hand at any hour, and it brings in someone from your team when a person is needed.
That way, a customer who comes back isn’t left waiting for someone to check the right folder.