Where do 'removed' attachments go?

R

Robert M. Lewis

Preface: Entourage X (with service release 1), OS 10.2

Question: When you remove an attachment, what happens to it? This comes from
a problem I just encountered, I received a series of pdf files which I saved
to the hard-disk and then 'removed' from the emails (and then deleted the
emails). However after doing so my database ballooned by 20MB (about the
size of all of the pdf files). Now I can't get the database onto my flash
card to take to work.
 
B

Bernard Rey

Robert M. Lewis wrote :
Preface: Entourage X (with service release 1), OS 10.2

Question: When you remove an attachment, what happens to it? This comes from
a problem I just encountered, I received a series of pdf files which I saved
to the hard-disk and then 'removed' from the emails (and then deleted the
emails). However after doing so my database ballooned by 20MB (about the
size of all of the pdf files). Now I can't get the database onto my flash
card to take to work.
Click to expand...

To really "remove" an attachment (or a message, etc) you have to rebuilt the
database. "Turn Off Office Notifications" from the "Entourage" menu, quit
Entourage, relaunch it holding down the "Option" key and you'll be prompted
to choose a typical rebuilt. Click yes, and then your database should become
lighter again.
 
R

Robert M. Lewis

Robert M. Lewis wrote :


To really "remove" an attachment (or a message, etc) you have to rebuilt the
database. "Turn Off Office Notifications" from the "Entourage" menu, quit
Entourage, relaunch it holding down the "Option" key and you'll be prompted
to choose a typical rebuilt. Click yes, and then your database should become
lighter again.
Click to expand...

AH, thanks very much.
 
D

Diane Ross

Question: When you remove an attachment, what happens to it? This comes from
a problem I just encountered, I received a series of pdf files which I saved
to the hard-disk and then 'removed' from the emails (and then deleted the
emails). However after doing so my database ballooned by 20MB (about the
size of all of the pdf files). Now I can't get the database onto my flash
card to take to work.
Click to expand...

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.

More info here:

Database <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/faq/database.html>
 
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