The Archive widget is used to organise your previously published posts by month.
The archive widgets makes it easy for you and your readers to easily access previous months or years posts. For example, clicking on June 2021 archive link displays all your posts written in that month.
Here’s what it looks like when it’s added to a sidebar.
Settings
Once you add the widget to your sidebar in Appearance > Widgets, you’ll see that the widget settings look like this:
Title: Allows you to add your own custom title.
Display as dropdown: when this box is selected the months are displayed in a dropdown menu rather than as a list. Using “Display as dropdown” is ideal for reducing sidebar clutter and to save space.
Show post counts: when this box is selected the total number of posts publish during that month are displayed next to the link.