BIG size disparity between Main Identity and Main Identity backup

[canoeboater]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: Intel
Email Client: Exchange

I just did a backup of my Main Identity in Entourage. It shows up as 7 GB on my hard drive. That's strange, because the identity itself only consumes 1 GB.

For comparison, I exported everything to an archive (.rge). That shows up at around 1 GB, too.

What's up with the backup? Why seven times bigger?

I've recently deleted large amounts of duplicative email. The deleted items folders have been emptied. Could this be stuck in there somehow?

 

[Diane Ross]

For comparison, I exported everything to an archive (.rge). That shows up at
around 1 GB, too.

That's the actual data that's still in your database.

What's up with the backup? Why seven times bigger?

You've deleted a bunch of stuff that's ready to be overwritten. Think of
this as a partition just for your email. As you have found exporting as
Entourage archive (.rge) file is a very size friendly way to backup.

I've recently deleted large amounts of duplicative email. The deleted items
folders have been emptied. Could this be stuck in there somehow?

Emptying the cache does not reduce the database size itself. 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.

Make a duplicate in the Finder first as additional backup. A rebuild does
make a duplicate, but sometimes in the process the original and backup get
merged resulting in total disaster. It's rare but it happens.

--
Diane Ross, Microsoft Mac MVP
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