Is my database too big for Entourage?

[jack]

When I upgraded to Office 2004, I had understood that Entourage's
database could grow to an unlimited size. Mine is probably not that big
relatively speaking (1.5 GB), but I'm wondering if it's the reason that
the program freezes up for a few minutes at a time more and more
frequently? Whatever I'm doing inside Entourage must wait for 1-5
minutes (all is frozen) as the computer seems to churn like crazy in
the background. Other applications work fine during this time.
But this is getting tiresome - is the database simply too big?
I've preferred Entourage for it's folders and sub-folders -- my work is
very email dependent and I must save everything, thus the ever-growing
DB size. Or is this not size-related?

 

[Michel Bintener]

Hi,

you're right, there's no actual size limit to Entourage 2004's database, but
the number of items inside that database is limited to 2 million items. You
can read get some more information on this page:

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

It might very well be that you're experiencing the first symptoms of a
database corruption; see if rebuilding your database makes Entourage more
responsive. Caveat: rebuilding a database destroys category associations as
well as e-mail message links (links to replies and so on).

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

When I upgraded to Office 2004, I had understood that Entourage's
database could grow to an unlimited size. Mine is probably not that big
relatively speaking (1.5 GB), but I'm wondering if it's the reason that
the program freezes up for a few minutes at a time more and more
frequently? Whatever I'm doing inside Entourage must wait for 1-5
minutes (all is frozen) as the computer seems to churn like crazy in
the background. Other applications work fine during this time.
But this is getting tiresome - is the database simply too big?
I've preferred Entourage for it's folders and sub-folders -- my work is
very email dependent and I must save everything, thus the ever-growing
DB size. Or is this not size-related?

--
Michel Bintener
Microsoft MVP
Office:Mac (Entourage & Word)

***Always reply to the newsgroup.***

 

[jack]

Dear Michel,

Thanks for your reply. Very good to know this.

If I want to streamline things somehow, do you have any advice? Let's
say if I take all of the items in the Sent Items that are older than 6
months and save them somehow on a DVD. Is it possible to do this
simply?
And if I then need to search for something in there again at some
point, can I do this relatively easily?

Also, will it help to compact the database? What does that actually do
to everything?

Best regards, Jack

 

[Michel Bintener]

Hi Jack,

yes, this can be done more or less easily. Create a new custom view
(File>New>Custom View), then specify "Messages" as the Item Type. Choose a
location for these messages next, then enter your criteria, such as "Date
Sent is greater than 180 days old", and save the custom view. In Entourage's
folder list, click on the triangle next to Mail Views to expand that list,
then select your newly created view. Entourage will take some time,
depending on the size of your database, and you will see all the messages
conforming to your search criteria. To back up these messages, simply drag
that view (from the folder list) to your desktop, where it will be saved as
a standard .mbox file which contains all your messages.

To search this .mbox file, you will have to drag the .mbox file back into
Entourage (or any other e-mail client; you could for instance use Mail.app
as an archive for these older messages).

Compacting your database is similar to rebuilding your database, only, it's
non-destructive (i.e. preserves links and so on). At the same time, because
it's not as radical as a rebuild, chances are quite high that your problems
are still there after compacting the database. Sometimes, a rebuild is the
only effective solution to prevent loss of data caused by database
corruption.

Dear Michel,

Thanks for your reply. Very good to know this.

If I want to streamline things somehow, do you have any advice? Let's
say if I take all of the items in the Sent Items that are older than 6
months and save them somehow on a DVD. Is it possible to do this
simply?
And if I then need to search for something in there again at some
point, can I do this relatively easily?

Also, will it help to compact the database? What does that actually do
to everything?

Best regards, Jack

--
Michel Bintener
Microsoft MVP
Office:Mac (Entourage & Word)

***Always reply to the newsgroup.***

 

[jack]

Dear Michel,

Wow - this is very helpful.
I must also thank you for the link to the Entourage Help Page. I didn't
know that was there - and I've been using this program for about 8
years!
I liked the hint on that page about creating a new Identity, then
putting old mail in there.
And I like your idea about using Apple's Mail program for storing old
mail.
Thanks a million for these tips and the custom view instructions. Best
regards, Jack

 

[Michel Bintener]

Glad I could help! The Entourage Help Page is indeed a very useful resource
that is well worth bookmarking.

Dear Michel,

Wow - this is very helpful.
I must also thank you for the link to the Entourage Help Page. I didn't
know that was there - and I've been using this program for about 8
years!
I liked the hint on that page about creating a new Identity, then
putting old mail in there.
And I like your idea about using Apple's Mail program for storing old
mail.
Thanks a million for these tips and the custom view instructions. Best
regards, Jack

--
Michel Bintener
Microsoft MVP
Office:Mac (Entourage & Word)

***Always reply to the newsgroup.***

 

[Scott]

I didn't know that about the ability to drag the actual Mail View (vs
the individual emails). Very slick trick. Thanks for that one.

 

[cyclejim]

Very helpful posts, as usual, Michel. BUT you say here that a rebuild
destroys category associations, links and reply links. I have not had
that experience. I rarely use links, but replies seem fine, as do the
categories. What does happen is that many times the project coding is
screwed up; some remains, others disappear in the message views ....
they seem to be ok in the projects themselves. Have i just been lucky?
Any way to prevent the project coding problems?

thanks,
cyclejim

 

[Michel Bintener]

Thanks, cyclejim.

I have to say that your post surprises me. As far as I know, a complete and
successful rebuild of an Entourage database should get rid of a large part
of the metadata that might be stored in the database, including category and
project associations. What kind of e-mail account do you use? If it's an
IMAP account, then Entourage might simply re-apply all the active rules on
these messages when it re-downloads them, which, depending on your rules and
the settings in your preferences, might explain why your messages still have
their categories. Apart from that, I can't really think of any other
explanation right now.

Very helpful posts, as usual, Michel. BUT you say here that a rebuild
destroys category associations, links and reply links. I have not had
that experience. I rarely use links, but replies seem fine, as do the
categories. What does happen is that many times the project coding is
screwed up; some remains, others disappear in the message views ....
they seem to be ok in the projects themselves. Have i just been lucky?
Any way to prevent the project coding problems?

thanks,
cyclejim

--
Michel Bintener
Microsoft MVP
Office:Mac (Entourage & Word)

***Always reply to the newsgroup.***

 

[Mickey Stevens]

If you're using Tiger (Mac OS X 10.4), make sure that the "Office 2004
Identities" folder is excluded from Spotlight searches. Go to System
Preferences, and then open Spotlight Preferences. Click the "Privacy" tab,
and drag the "Office 2004 Identities" folder (located in
~/Documents/Microsoft User Data/) into the list.

Since I did this on my new machine, Entourage seems to have been performing
more responsively.