We all have ordered embarrassing items on Amazon at some point in our lives, which we don’t want anyone to find out. While there’s no way to delete an order from your purchase history, Amazon allows you to archive orders to hide them. Whether you purchased a pair of the best wireless headphones as a surprise gift for your significant other or made a late-night embarrassing purchase decision, here’s how to archive orders on Amazon to hide them.
How to archive Amazon orders
There is no way to delete orders from your Amazon history. The best you can do is to hide (aka archive) them:
- Click the link to visit the Amazon homepage on your computer.
- Hover the mouse cursor over Accounts & Lists option and choose Your Orders in the drop-down list that appears.
- To archive an order, click the Archive order button in the lower-left corner of the order.
- A popup confirmation dialog appears. Click the yellow Archive order button to hide the order.
If you are archiving an open order because you purchased it as a surprise gift from someone, don’t forget about Amazon Locker and Amazon Counter if you want to make sure you can pick up the order in secret.
How to view archived orders on Amazon
The benefit of archiving an order instead of deleting it is that you can still view it if needed. You can also unarchive orders to add them back to your regular order history page. Here is how you can view and unarchive your archived orders on Amazon.
- On your computer, go to Amazon.com.
- Hover your mouse over the Account & Lists option and click Your Orders.
- Click the drop-down button next to the X orders placed in text.
- Click the Archived Orders option.
- You will see a list of all your archived orders here. Click the Unarchive Order button in the lower-left corner to unarchive an order.
Drawbacks of Amazon archive order feature
While we love that there’s a way to hide your orders on Amazon, anyone actively looking for hidden orders can easily find them. We wish there was a way to either permanently delete an order or hide the archived orders behind a password. Another drawback of this feature is that you cannot archive or unarchive orders from the iOS and Android apps. You will have to use a computer or access the desktop website of Amazon on mobile.
Also, on both the desktop and the app, anyone can view the archived orders by searching for orders. However, it isn’t too bad since you would have to know what to look for ahead of time. The real issue is that archiving an order doesn’t remove the item from your Buy Again list. If order obfuscation is your objective, you’ll also need to remove it from Buy Again.
- On your Amazon order history page, choose the Buy Again option.
- Select the order you don’t want to appear in your buy again suggestions.
- Click the Remove this item button to stop Amazon from suggesting it in the future.
Share your Amazon Prime membership instead of your login
For the ultimate solution to keeping your order history secret, don’t share your account. Many people share accounts, so they can share the benefits of their Amazon Prime membership, but it turns out you can share your Prime benefits with one other person. You don’t even have to have the same address.
