My personal email account is with Gmail, and my work email account is with Google Apps. I’d prefer to use Apple Mail instead of Google’s webmail to check both accounts, but there’s no way for me to “archive” my messages like there is on the website.

Actually, the process of archiving your messages in Apple Mail is very easy—just drag and drop messages into Google’s All Mail folder instead of deleting them. (And Google automatically archives every message that you send, so you’re covered there.) If you don’t see the All Mail folder in Mail’s list, log into Google’s webmail interface, go to Settings > Labs, and enable Advanced IMAP Controls. Then go to Settings > Labels and check the box Show In IMAP for the All Mail folder. Then quit and relaunch Mail.

Summon MsgFiler’s floating window to quickly file messages into any folder you like.

Easy enough—want to make it even easier? Archive (free, stl.techinno.nl) adds a keyboard shortcut and puts an Archive button in your toolbar you can click to file messages into the All Mail folder. If you’re not using a Google-based email account, the software creates an archive folder for you. Alternatively, MsgFiler ($8, tow.com) gives you a blazing-fast way to move your messages to any folder you’d like, along with complete keyboard control and a Spotlight-search to jump between folder.

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