Move an existing database

[Thomas Wildgruber]

Hi Group,

maybe a simple question but I didn't found an answer. I'm running out of
space on my system drive and want to move the entourage database to another
volume on a second hard disk drive. In the settings menu of entourage I
didn't found a way to do that. Can anyone tell me how it works?

Thx & Bye Tom

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

Hi Group,

maybe a simple question but I didn't found an answer. I'm running out of
space on my system drive and want to move the entourage database to another
volume on a second hard disk drive. In the settings menu of entourage I
didn't found a way to do that. Can anyone tell me how it works?

You can move it and then alias it (or symlink it) in the original
location,


Corentin

 

[Diane Ross]

maybe a simple question but I didn't found an answer. I'm running out of
space on my system drive and want to move the entourage database to another
volume on a second hard disk drive. In the settings menu of entourage I
didn't found a way to do that. Can anyone tell me how it works?

Rather than move the Entourage Identity, I would move either your iPhoto or
iTunes library. There are specific instructions on moving the iTunes library
to a different location.

Have you considered archiving older mails? Have you checked to see how much
wasted space is in your database?

Export all items as Entourage archive (.rge) file. Under File > Export
select the default export. Compare the size of the .rge to the size of the
database. The difference is wasted space. If it's considerable you can
compact your database.

 

[Thomas Wildgruber]

Rather than move the Entourage Identity, I would move either your iPhoto or
iTunes library. There are specific instructions on moving the iTunes library
to a different location.

Have you considered archiving older mails? Have you checked to see how much
wasted space is in your database?

Export all items as Entourage archive (.rge) file. Under File > Export
select the default export. Compare the size of the .rge to the size of the
database. The difference is wasted space. If it's considerable you can
compact your database.

Hi Diane,

in this case this is an Entourage problem. This is a office Mac in a
PrePress environment with a approximate 14 GB database. There are no iTunes
or iPhoto librarys which I can move. And we are archiving mails who are
older than one month. The major problem is that the database become not
smaller when we archiving mails. At least not by itself...

BTW our Entourage is connected to an Exchange server and the whole prepress
service team (15 persons) is connected to one single mail account. We
already limited the maxium size of the mail body to 10 MB and I can't
adjust less than this because our customers are not willing to use our FTP
server for every small attachment. A worse scenario I know...

We have a lot of problems with this specific mail account. A few month ago
we had every single day at least one corrupt database but now the situation
seams to be stable but here and there some kind of problems still remain;
like this one.

I have no idea how I can finaly fix this problem. I tried to establish some
political rules but I think there is no way out without some more
aggressive technical restrictions. I'm lucky that Entourage itself seams to
be stable at the moment but I know that I'm running into trouble again with
databases in that size.

The workaround from Corentin seams to work for the moment, I know it
exactly tomorrow morning because the synchronistaion needs awhile.

Thx for your attention & Bye Tom

 

[Diane Ross]

in this case this is an Entourage problem. This is a office Mac in a
PrePress environment with a approximate 14 GB database. There are no iTunes
or iPhoto librarys which I can move. And we are archiving mails who are
older than one month. The major problem is that the database become not
smaller when we archiving mails. At least not by itself...

This is correct. When you delete a message that space is reused. Since this
is only an Exchange account rather than using the database utility to
compress. I would just sync back up to the account to reduce the size.

Move older emails out of the Inbox. See "Optimize Entourage to better work
with Exchange"

<http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/2008/03/optimize_entourage_to_better_work_wi
th_exchange.html>

BTW our Entourage is connected to an Exchange server and the whole prepress
service team (15 persons) is connected to one single mail account. We
already limited the maxium size of the mail body to 10 MB and I can't
adjust less than this because our customers are not willing to use our FTP
server for every small attachment. A worse scenario I know...

This is an unusual setup. Is there a reason you need to share one account?
If we had more info we might be able to come up with alternatives.

I have no idea how I can finaly fix this problem. I tried to establish some
political rules but I think there is no way out without some more
aggressive technical restrictions. I'm lucky that Entourage itself seams to
be stable at the moment but I know that I'm running into trouble again with
databases in that size.

The size is quite large, but I have seen larger reported. I don't
recommended it though.

Option 1: One solution that might work would be to use a service like
ShareFile. They could upload easily using this method. I tested it once and
found it very easy to use for me and my clients.

<http://www.sharefile.com/>

Check out their demos.

<http://kb.sharefile.com/1049.ashx>

Option 2: To keep current Identity lean, I suggest removing incoming
attachments with one of the "remove attachment" scripts. They will save,
remove and link the saved files to the message, so you can open the file
directly from the message.

<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/script/fav_scripts.html#favscript17>

<http://scriptbuilders.net/files/saveattachments20041.0.0.html>

Also remove your outgoing attachments with a rule. This is assuming your
outgoing attachments are stored elsewhere on your computer. No need to have
them duplicated and filling up your database.

<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/rules/example/rule001.html>

Hope this helps!

 

[Thomas Wildgruber]

Move older emails out of the Inbox. See "Optimize Entourage to better work
with Exchange"[...]

<http://tinyurl.com/56ea7k>

Thanks for that information. I'm a little surprised about the question
"where is my Exchange Server". The link to the manual "Connecting Entourage
to an Exchange Server at work"[1] describe the way how I connect our
Entourage clients to our Exchange Server (who is located in the internal
network) but one little detail is different -> The FQDN of the
Exchangeserver. In this manual is an example FQDN 'exchange01.mydomain.com'
but I configure the whole OWA URL ->
'https://exchange01.mydomain.com/exchange'

Is there a difference between this two ways or is it finaly always an OWA
connection? I thought the only way to connect Entourage to an Exchange
Server (without using POP oder IMAP) is the OWA mechanism.

[1] http://entourage.mvps.org/exchange/exchangeatwork.html

This is an unusual setup. Is there a reason you need to share one account?
If we had more info we might be able to come up with alternatives.

This is a historical problem. Because every customer knows this (single)
office email address, there are not willing to use a personal address. And
personal addresses would be changed very time, when a employee resign from
the company or there is a change from the person in charge for a specific
project. Now every person receive every mail and they can pick up the
messages who are interesting for them. Like a [email protected]
address.

[...]

Option 1: One solution that might work would be to use a service like
ShareFile. They could upload easily using this method. I tested it once and
found it very easy to use for me and my clients.

<http://www.sharefile.com/>

Check out their demos.

<http://kb.sharefile.com/1049.ashx>

I will take a closer look at this alternative. But first I evaluate the
other two options below.

Option 2: To keep current Identity lean, I suggest removing incoming
attachments with one of the "remove attachment" scripts. They will save,
remove and link the saved files to the message, so you can open the file
directly from the message.

<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/script/fav_scripts.html#favscript17>

<http://scriptbuilders.net/files/saveattachments20041.0.0.html>

This option works but I guess that only the local Entourage database is
affected by this mechanism. A good idea to keep the local DB small but the
exchange DB is still growing bigger and bigger. I only guess because I
can't see any changes on the Exchange DB after a few tests but in the other
Entourage clients (where the script is not installed and configured) the
attachment still remain. If this script would run agianst the Exchange DB,
the attachment should be removed on every client.

Also remove your outgoing attachments with a rule. This is assuming your
outgoing attachments are stored elsewhere on your computer. No need to have
them duplicated and filling up your database.

<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/rules/example/rule001.html>

This script is working different. If I send an email from one Entourage
client which is configured to remove the attachment from an outgoing email,
the attachment is removed on every single Entourage client. But only the
sending Entourage gets an information that the attachment has been removed.
On the other Clients there is on attachment and also no hint, that there
ever was an attachment.

Thx & Bye Tom

 

[William Smith [MVP]]

Thanks for that information. I'm a little surprised about the question
"where is my Exchange Server". The link to the manual "Connecting Entourage
to an Exchange Server at work"[1] describe the way how I connect our
Entourage clients to our Exchange Server (who is located in the internal
network) but one little detail is different -> The FQDN of the
Exchangeserver. In this manual is an example FQDN 'exchange01.mydomain.com'
but I configure the whole OWA URL ->
'https://exchange01.mydomain.com/exchange'

Is there a difference between this two ways or is it finaly always an OWA
connection? I thought the only way to connect Entourage to an Exchange
Server (without using POP oder IMAP) is the OWA mechanism.

Outlook Web Access (OWA) is just the brand name that Microsoft gave its
webmail service for Exchange. Technically, it's *just* the webmail service.

However, what many folks do for convenience of moving their laptops
inside and outside their company network is *always* use the OWA
address. The problem with that is when you're inside your network then
you may have more hops to get to your Exchange account. That can slow
things down and often leads to extended periods of synchronization and
sluggishness.

The address you are using above with the "/exchange" is the same as
using it without. Makes no difference.

This is a historical problem. Because every customer knows this (single)
office email address, there are not willing to use a personal address. And
personal addresses would be changed very time, when a employee resign from
the company or there is a change from the person in charge for a specific
project. Now every person receive every mail and they can pick up the
messages who are interesting for them. Like a [email protected]
address.

This is rife with potential problems. Giving everyone access to one
account means no one has accountability if something goes wrong. If
someone accidentally deletes that important file that took an hour to
transfer to you, who knows who did it?

You should consider personal E-mail accounts and then set each person as
a delegate for the group mailbox. You can even restrict what some people
are able to do.

This option works but I guess that only the local Entourage database is
affected by this mechanism. A good idea to keep the local DB small but the
exchange DB is still growing bigger and bigger. I only guess because I
can't see any changes on the Exchange DB after a few tests but in the other
Entourage clients (where the script is not installed and configured) the
attachment still remain. If this script would run agianst the Exchange DB,
the attachment should be removed on every client.

You're using your E-mail as file storage. It was never intended for
that. With a 14GB Database file, you're most likely looking at
corruption and headaches in the future. The sheer size is going to
become unwieldy and then you may not even be able to rebuild it because
you don't have enough disk space.

Let E-mail carry the message to you but then detach files and put them
on file servers where they belong. You can even set rules in Entourage
to save attachments and then delete them from the message.

--

bill

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