Difference
- Mute: stays in the list but pushes no notifications; unread counts still grow;
- Archive: moves out of the main list into the Archived section for a cleaner view.
How to
- Long-press a chat to mute it for an hour up to forever;
- Long-press or swipe to archive;
- Enable auto-archive for new chats in Settings.
Caution
Archived chats pop back into the list when a new message arrives (this can be turned off). Pinned chats are unaffected.