Seven private email chains of former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will be withheld from the public in their entirety because they contain top secret information, the U.S. State Department said Friday.

The material, amounting to 37 printed pages, contained information U.S. intelligence agencies said was classified as top secret, State Department spokesman John Kirby said.

"These documents were not marked classified at the time that they were sent," Kirby said, adding that the department would investigate whether the information in them was classified at the time.