Backup of entourage

[Matthewalb]

I am having a problem backing up entourage. It is too big to fit on a
cd. I go into the documents/microsoft user data/office x
identities/main identity folder and try to copy all the files. I was
told there was supposed to be a message file that I copied for all the
messages, but no such fild exists (though it seems liek there used to
be when I've backed up before- I did a search on the whole computer
and still can't find the file). There is a database file which has
about 715 mb of info, which I'm presuming has all the message info. I
kep trying to get that file down to a size that is manageable to burn
onto cd, but haven't had any luck. I tied going into my send folder
to delete and big attachements. That didn't lower it at all. I tried
going into my message folders to delete big emails iwth attachments,
that didn't help at all. It jsut keeps getting bigger, no matter how
much I delete.

Any thoughts on what I can do?

Many thanks,
Matthew Alrbacht

 

[Adam Bailey]

I am having a problem backing up entourage. It is too big to fit on a
cd.
[snip]
I tied going into my send folder to delete and big attachements. That
didn't lower it at all. I tried going into my message folders to delete
big emails iwth attachments, that didn't help at all. It jsut keeps
getting bigger, no matter how much I delete.

Try compacting your database. Hold down the Option Key prior to launching
Entourage and choose a Simple Rebuild.

And make sure you back up all of the other files in your identity, they have
interdependencies.

 

[Diane Ross]

I am having a problem backing up entourage. It is too big to fit on a
cd.
[snip]
I tied going into my send folder to delete and big attachements. That
didn't lower it at all. I tried going into my message folders to delete
big emails iwth attachments, that didn't help at all. It jsut keeps
getting bigger, no matter how much I delete.

Try compacting your database. Hold down the Option Key prior to launching
Entourage and choose a Simple Rebuild.

And make sure you back up all of the other files in your identity, they have
interdependencies.

Adding a bit of background info....The database will be left with 'wasted'
space in it every time you delete something. However, this is not all bad,
since the wasted space is used up with new data as it is added. This way,
over a period of time (assuming that you are deleting stuff as you go) the
database will probably reach an optimum size, after which the stuff you
delete is roughly equal to the stuff you add, and no further growth takes
place.

If you need to recover the wasted space on your hard disk, you will have to
do a 'typical' rebuild to compact the database. This will create a compacted
version of the database without the wasted space. You will then have to
manually delete the backup copies of the original database that the rebuild
process creates AFTER you are happy the new one is OK.

Another option to backup:

€ Drag a folder to the desktop. This creates an MBOX file that can
later be dragged back into Entourage or opened with a text editor. You can
burn these files to CD.

€ Your contacts can be exported for backup. File-> Export Contacts.

This gives you some flexibility since they are separate files.