Creating auto-archiving Notion systems

Did you know you can archive Notion pages in databases via an automation? That’s right, there’s a Archive pages… action step in automation actions. A lot of folks may have missed this one as it was added shortly after the archival system was added without much fanfare. I’ve added “auto-archiving” systems to a lot of my high-traffic databases.

The Recipe

1. Decide which database(s) you want to enable auto-archiving on.
2. Add a new Status option to the “Complete” group of the database’s Status property.
3. Add an automation to auto-archive the page when the Status is set to “Archived.”

Why do this?

This automation will automatically move the page to an archived status, which removes it from search, views, relation pickers, and AI contexts.

Having half a decade of out of date content in your Notion workspaces is a huge waste of context. Deep workspace cleaning and archiving is a good strategy a few times a year, but it’s better to build these proactive systems into your practice so that maintenance is ongoing and proactive.

The Setup

For each database you want to enable auto-archiving on, add an automation:

1. Make sure you give your automation a title so you can identify it
2. Triggers on when the page’s Status is set to “Archived”.
3. Add an “Archive pages…” step and use the Trigger page as the target.

Notifications

I sometimes also add a final Send notification to... step in my automation, letting anyone in a related Person property know a page they might have been assigned to or associated with has been archived. A simple formula as the Message value will tell the specific people you want to notify what has been archived.

Alternatives

One user on LinkedIn questioned, “why I would do this over just clicking a page’s menu and selecting archive?” A few reasons stand out for me:

1. It is baked into the workflow for other users. In board views, “Archived” shows as a column for moving pages into. This feels quite natural to newer Notion users. The activity of being archived occurs as a side-effect. Nothing for them to think about.
2. It allows us to tack on notification systems to make sure others are aware when something they might have cared about is archived.
3. The status change can be triggered from anywhere, simply by changing the property value. There is an option for archiving pages via the API, but this is a more obvious option for most users.
4. Bulk archiving in this way isn’t limited to table views (only view where bulk-editing is available). For example, I can archive multiple pages by dragging them to the Archived column in a Board view).

Architecting Workspaces

This is one of the “side-quests” in our new program Architecting Workspaces, available now as part of Notion Mastery. In phase 3 of the course, we go deep on how to develop Sustainable Maintenance Rhythms as part of healthy Notion practice.