Huge Main Database

[TJ]

I¹ve been searching for information that would indicate what a ³typical²
Main Identity Database file size would be?

I know there is no such thing as ³typical² but I¹ve got 2,249 email saved in
52 folders and my Database is over 450MB!

I went and deleted any duplicates, and deleted ALL attachments, and the
Database did no decrease in size.... This is very strange to me.

I¹m looking to move my organization from Apple Mail to Entourage, but as
email is our primary method of communication within my organization, and
trying to back up 30 users Entourage databases when they are all over 400MB
is going to be unreasonably expensive (both in time and money).

I¹ve also found on this forum many references to ³Rebuilding the Database²
and ³compacting², yet I can find no such commands in the menu structure of
Entourage (10.1.5).

Please let me know what is going on here, I thank you all in advance for all
of your support.

TJ Lambert

 

[Paul Berkowitz]

I¹ve been searching for information that would indicate what a ³typical² Main
Identity Database file size would be?

I know there is no such thing as ³typical² but I¹ve got 2,249 email saved in
52 folders and my Database is over 450MB!

Hmmm. The maximum size is 4 GB. you're OK.

I went and deleted any duplicates, and deleted ALL attachments, and the
Database did no decrease in size.... This is very strange to me.

You'd have to do a Typical Rebuild to reduce the size. unless you're short
of disk space, though, there's not much point. New messages will just fill
up the space again, and it's kinder to your disk not to rebuild more often
than necessary.

I¹m looking to move my organization from Apple Mail to Entourage, but as email
is our primary method of communication within my organization, and trying to
back up 30 users Entourage databases when they are all over 400MB is going to
be unreasonably expensive (both in time and money).

Time? (The empty space takes next to no time to copy). Money??? What money?

I¹ve also found on this forum many references to ³Rebuilding the Database² and
³compacting², yet I can find no such commands in the menu structure of
Entourage (10.1.5).

Did you try the Help menu? it's there. (Hold down Option key when launching
Entourage.)

Please let me know what is going on here, I thank you all in advance for all
of your support.

You're very welcome.

--
Paul Berkowitz
MVP Entourage
Entourage FAQ Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/toc.html>
AppleScripts for Entourage: <http://macscripter.net/scriptbuilders/>

Please "Reply To Newsgroup" to reply to this message. Emails will be
ignored.

PLEASE always state which version of Entourage you are using - 2001 or X.
It's often impossible to answer your questions otherwise.

 

[TJ]

Hmmm. The maximum size is 4 GB. you're OK.
You'd have to do a Typical Rebuild to reduce the size. unless you're short of
disk space, though, there's not much point. New messages will just fill up the
space again, and it's kinder to your disk not to rebuild more often than
necessary.
Time? (The empty space takes next to no time to copy). Money??? What money?
Did you try the Help menu? it's there. (Hold down Option key when launching
Entourage.)

You're very welcome.

Thanks for the advice...... ³Help Menu²... Really big Œduhhhh¹ on my part!
Thanks for waking me up!!

What I ended up doing that day (I should have waited for your very quick
response!), was just dragging my folders & subfolders (individually, as
dragging the main folder will not copy the enclosed sub-flolders), to my
desktop ­ deleting them from Entourage, and closing the app. - Then,
relaunching and simply dragging them back.

This took my database from 450MB to 3.5!!!

I¹m curious as to where all the disk-usage was coming from? To use 450MB for
only 3.5 of mail seems awfully excessive/inefficient to me.

Thanks again for the quick help to my issue.

 

[Paul Berkowitz]

Thanks for the advice...... ³Help Menu²... Really big Œduhhhh¹ on my part!
Thanks for waking me up!!

What I ended up doing that day (I should have waited for your very quick
response!), was just dragging my folders & subfolders (individually, as
dragging the main folder will not copy the enclosed sub-flolders), to my
desktop ­ deleting them from Entourage, and closing the app. - Then,
relaunching and simply dragging them back.

That will work too, but it's slower. Especially with 52 folders.

This took my database from 450MB to 3.5!!!

I¹m curious as to where all the disk-usage was coming from? To use 450MB for
only 3.5 of mail seems awfully excessive/inefficient to me.

Without doing a rebuild, even deleting everything in your identity and NOT
dragging anything back shouldn't reduce its size one iota. Are you sure this
is the same identity? You must have had serious corruption there if so. I
still don't see how the database file size reduced without at least a
typical rebuild. Are you quite sure you didn't then do one of those? And 3.5
MB seems a little small for 2249 email messages but possible, I guess, if
there are no graphics attachments.

--
Paul Berkowitz
MVP Entourage
Entourage FAQ Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/toc.html>
AppleScripts for Entourage: <http://macscripter.net/scriptbuilders/>

Please "Reply To Newsgroup" to reply to this message. Emails will be
ignored.

PLEASE always state which version of Entourage you are using - 2001 or X.
It's often impossible to answer your questions otherwise.

 

[Alan Goldberg]

Re : Database max size is 4GB.

The tech note on rebuilding databases indicates that you need twice as
much disk space as the current database file in order to do a successful
rebuild.

A client of ours has a 2.3GB file which will not rebuild - pardon me if this is
a stupid question, but does that mean that the 'in progress' file will exceed
4GB?

Also - is the max file size in Entourage 2001 2GB (Mac OS 9 file size limit I
believe). I have another client who cannot rebuild his 2GB Entourage 2001
database.

Thanks is advance.

Alan

 

[Mickey Stevens]

Re : Database max size is 4GB.

The tech note on rebuilding databases indicates that you need twice as
much disk space as the current database file in order to do a successful
rebuild.

A client of ours has a 2.3GB file which will not rebuild - pardon me if this
is
a stupid question, but does that mean that the 'in progress' file will exceed
4GB?

It's not really one file. The rebuild process keeps the 2.3 GB file and
then creates a new Database, which is usually slightly smaller but could
reach 2.3 GB, meaning you'd then need 2.3 GB free when you start the
rebuild. That would equal 4.6 GB between the two files.

Also - is the max file size in Entourage 2001 2GB (Mac OS 9 file size limit I
believe).

Yes, it is 2GB.

I have another client who cannot rebuild his 2GB Entourage 2001
database.

If it's already 2GB and can't be rebuilt, it's probably gone. You could try
opening it up in a text editor (be prepared for a *long* wait) to salvage
some data, but it probably won't be usable in Entourage again. Fortunately
Entourage X gives warnings when the database size limit is near.