Power dump

For you people with your mind in the trash, this is not what it sounds like. Well, in a way it is. While using Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express, you can permanently delete an e-mail by holding down the shift key and pressing “Delete”—bypassing the “Deleted Items” or “trash” altogether.

Most people are a little hesitant to empty their “Deleted Items” folder, even though they know 90 percent of what’s in there will never be needed. The other side of that is you don’t want to have thousands of items in that folder either. By “power deleting” items you know you’ll never need, like spam, the number of number of items in your “Deleted Items” folder grows at a much slower pace.

Sure, emptying your “Deleted Items” every two or three weeks compared to every week may not sound like much. But if it reduces your paranoia about permanently removing deleted items, it’s well worth it.