In Google Wave, you have a variety of choices for how you want to organize the waves you’re interested in and not interested in. It’s helpful to be able to make the distinction between unfollowing a wave, archiving a wave, and moving a wave to the trash.
Unfollow or Follow a wave
When you are added as a user to a wave or participate in a wave, you are set automatically to follow that wave. A followed wave is one that remains in your inbox and any updates to the wave are reflected in your inbox.
If you’re searching for public waves, and you find one that interests you, you can open that wave and read it without following the wave. In order to follow the wave you must have the wave opened and then click the “Follow” button in the toolbar of the wave.
When you unfollow a wave, you will not be updated of any changes to the wave and the wave no longer appears in your inbox. Simply click the “Unfollow” button in the toolbar.
You can still retrieve unfollowed waves by searching “is:unfollowed” in the search box.
Archive a wave
When you archive a wave, you choose to hide the wave from appearing in your inbox until there are new changes or additions to the wave. I’ve found archive most helpful when I don’t want to completely trash a wave but I want to get the wave out of my way since I’ve already looked at it.
To archive a wave, simply click the “Archive” button on the toolbar of the open wave.
Because an archived wave is hidden and doesn’t appear until their are any changes to the wave, it is not saved in anything like an archive folder. However, you can find this wave at any time by either clicking the “All” link in your navigation panel or searching for the wave. An archived wave is not a deleted wave.
Trash a wave
Trash is designed for waves that you no longer care about but ones that you’re still listed as a participant. At the current moment, there is no way to remove yourself as a participant from a wave. Follow or unfollowed waves can be moved to the trash.
To move a wave to the trash, simply click on the “Trash” button on the toolbar of the open wave.
If you move a wave to the trash, the trashed wave will be hidden from your inbox, but you can always retreive any waves in the trash by clicking the “Trash” link in the navigation box.