That's a good question because if you use Gmail like I do, you actually toss quite a bit of mail. I know that the good folk at Google want us to keep everything so we can search it all at any point, but honestly, if I'm not interested in it today, why would I think I'd be interested in it six months from now?

It's also easy to search for messages in the trash with a standard Gmail search: you just have to remember to look at the very bottom for the line: Deleted messages match your search. View them or go to Trash to delete forever.. Click on "View them" to see the messages in the Trash that match the search you've just entered.

But while you could search for the letter 'e' then "View them" to see everything in your trash (assuming that the letter 'e' occurs in each and every message you've deleted) that's rather dorky. Instead, there are actually two ways to get to your Trash.

The first way is my favorite: Simply search for in:trash and you'll find that it shows you every message in the Trash on Gmail.

Too much to remember? Okay, there's an alternative. I have my email folders minimized in Gmail, so here's what I see on the left side in Gmail:

A click on "More", however, and there's much more revealed:

Did you see "Trash" listed there? Click on it and Gmail actually does a search for "in:trash" and shows you the result, your trash folder.

How do you know? On the very top, it'll also say this: Empty Trash now (messages that have been in Trash more than 30 days will be automatically deleted).

Note that you only have thirty days worth of trash at any given time too. If you want to keep it longer, well, what are you putting it in the trash for? :-)