My Entourage database file weighs in at 1.8Gig. I have a notion that
this must be slowing it down. A couple of questions then please:
Size issues are related to the version as things have changed considerably
as Entourage has developed. Unfortunately, you don't state what version you
are running. However, if you are up to date with the upgrades your maximum
database size will be at least 4Gb.
a) Is there a maximum size after which performance is affected?
Not directly.
What may make a slight difference is the degree of fragmentation of the
database as it is a large single file. For most people, even with the
Database a s2gb, this will not make a significant difference.
More significant is the number of mails in an individual folder. This will
affect how quickly a folder displays it's contents when selected, and when
sorting or grouping mails. I try to keep mail folder sizes down below about
3,000 mails by moving them into subfolders etc.
b) What's the best way to archive off emails? (Dragging and dropping
seems very cumbersome and slow.)
New in Entourage 2004 there is an 'ExportŠ' command in the file menu. This
can select messages by category or project. If you are interested in
archiving out messages older than a certain number of days, select those
messages with an advanced find or custom view, then assign an 'archive'
category to them. Then run the Export command against this category,
allowing the command to delete messages after export. That should do what
you want.
You can also drag the messages from the custom view to the desktop to export
in MBOX format as well.
