MUD folder 50% larger after rebuild

[Joseph Chamberlain, DDS]

Dear colleagues:

Something strange just happened.

Since my MUD had reached 4 GB (I now understand this is no longer the MUD's
limit under Entourage 2004) and Entourage was becoming slower than usual, I
decided to "clean the house".

I erased a large number of e-mails from my inbox, most of which were
newsletter I receive every week written in html with lots of images and
graphics. After erasing the e-mails I went to the Deleted Items folder and
erased the messages from that folder as well.

Since my primary e-mail computer is my Powerbook G4, I transferred the MUD
folder to my Desktop G5 to use for rebuilding the database since it is much
faster than the notebook. I started Entourage pushing the option key and
chose to rebuild the database.

After all was done I decided to send the MUD folder back to the notebook and
looked at the size to see how much space I have gained. I was surprise to
find that the folder had gone from 4.0 GB to 6.08 GB.

What happened ? Did I miss something here ? Was Rebuild the right option to
choose or should have I chosen the Compact Database option instead ? How can
the database after so much information has been erased actually become 50%
larger ?

Something else I noticed after rebuilding the database was the fact that my
newsgroups' settings were gone. All the newsgroups I subscribe to and their
entries under my newsgroup server created in the Mail (left) panel had
disappeared. What happened here ? Is this typical after rebuilding a
database ?

Any help you can offer me with this issue will be very important and greatly
appreciated.

Thank you in advance and best regards,

Joseph

 

[Paul Berkowitz]

If you look in the Office 2004 Identities folder, you'll find at least one
"[Backed up" folder. That's your old pre-rebuilt folder. You can trash it
(them) now if the rebuild was successful.

--
Paul Berkowitz
MVP MacOffice
Entourage FAQ Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/faq/index.html>
AppleScripts for Entourage: <http://macscripter.net/scriptbuilders/>

Please "Reply To Newsgroup" to reply to this message. Emails will be
ignored.

PLEASE always state which version of Microsoft Office you are using -
**2004**, X or 2001. It's often impossible to answer your questions
otherwise.

 

[Joseph Chamberlain, DDS]

If you look in the Office 2004 Identities folder, you'll find at least one
"[Backed up" folder. That's your old pre-rebuilt folder. You can trash it
(them) now if the rebuild was successful.

How about the newsgroup setting ? Do I actually loose the entries for all
the newsgroups I subscribe to ? Do I have to subscribe to all newsgroups
again or is there a way to keep the newsgroups settings ?

Thank you,

Joseph

 

[Joseph Chamberlain, DDS]

Paul:

This is what I have inside the MUD:

1. Entourage Script Menu Items (folder)
2. Entourage Sound Sets (folder)
3. Entourage Temps (folder)
4. Explorer (folder)
5. Import Mappings (folder)
6. MSM Messenger History (folder)
7. Office 2004 Identities (folder)
8. Office X Identities (folder)
9. Printing Forms (folder)
10. Saved Attachments (folder)
11. AutoRecovery save or Order List (Word .doc)
12. AutoRecovery save of Research N (Word .doc)
13. AutoRecovery save of the Golden (Word .doc)
14. AutoRecovery save of Tooth ext (Word .doc)
15. Normal (Word template)

Inside the "Office 2004 Identities" folder I have two other folders:
1. Main Identity
2. Main Identity [Backed up 10-37-2005 17.35]

The Main Identity folder Backed-up is actually very small in size (16 KB)
and only contains a document inside entitled Rules and with the Entourage
logo on the icon.

The Main Identity folder, however, contains the following documents inside:
1. Database
2. Mailing Lists
3. Old Database
4. Rules
5. Signatures

Questions:

1. Is this "Old Database" file inside the "Main Identity" folder the one I
should delete ? The sizes are as follows:
Database file = 2.08 GB
Old Database file = 2.9 GB

Assuming this is the right file to delete, I would actually only gain 0.82
GB in the overall size of my MUD. Does this sound right ?

2. Why do I have a "Rules" file inside the "Main Identity" folder and
another file also named "Rules" inside the "Main Identity [Backed up
10-37-2005 17.35]" folder ? Can one of these be deleted ?

3. Why is there a need to keep the "Office X Identities" folder in the MUD
folder ? What is the purpose for this file if I have already upgraded to
Entourage 2004 ? The size of this folder is 1.1 GB and it could also save
some space although my guess is that removing it will not cause any
performance benefit. Is this right ?

Thank you very much once again for all your help and feedback.

Best regards,

Joseph

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Side note that may help clarify:

The size limitation (was 4GB in EntX, is now 2 million items in Ent2004)
applies to the Database file in a single Identity, not to the MUD. The MUD
holds the identities for each version of the program, and you can have
several identities in each version.
http://www.entourage.mvps.org/database/size.html

So all those files you listed are irrelevant to the question of size limits
in entourage. The size of the MUD folder makes no difference to anything.

Any identity you are no longer using is not required in the MUD folder.
Personally, I zip and archive them rather than deleting them, but it doesn't
matter where they are stored, unless you ever wanted to use them. And, at
that point, they'd probably be out of date.

It sounds like SP2 may have changed the backup routines a little, so I'll
let someone else speak to your Questions 1 and 2.

Paul:

This is what I have inside the MUD:

Inside the "Office 2004 Identities" folder I have two other folders:
1. Main Identity
2. Main Identity [Backed up 10-37-2005 17.35]

The Main Identity folder Backed-up is actually very small in size (16 KB)
and only contains a document inside entitled Rules and with the Entourage
logo on the icon.

The Main Identity folder, however, contains the following documents inside:
1. Database
2. Mailing Lists
3. Old Database
4. Rules
5. Signatures

Questions:

1. Is this "Old Database" file inside the "Main Identity" folder the one I
should delete ? The sizes are as follows:
Database file = 2.08 GB
Old Database file = 2.9 GB

Assuming this is the right file to delete, I would actually only gain 0.82
GB in the overall size of my MUD. Does this sound right ?

2. Why do I have a "Rules" file inside the "Main Identity" folder and
another file also named "Rules" inside the "Main Identity [Backed up
10-37-2005 17.35]" folder ? Can one of these be deleted ?

3. Why is there a need to keep the "Office X Identities" folder in the MUD
folder ? What is the purpose for this file if I have already upgraded to
Entourage 2004 ? The size of this folder is 1.1 GB and it could also save
some space although my guess is that removing it will not cause any
performance benefit. Is this right ?

Thank you very much once again for all your help and feedback.

Best regards,

Joseph

---

Dr. Joseph Chamberlain
Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery

If you look in the Office 2004 Identities folder, you'll find at least one
"[Backed up" folder. That's your old pre-rebuilt folder. You can trash it
(them) now if the rebuild was successful.

 

[Paul Berkowitz]

Paul:

This is what I have inside the MUD:

1. Entourage Script Menu Items (folder)
2. Entourage Sound Sets (folder)
3. Entourage Temps (folder)
4. Explorer (folder)
5. Import Mappings (folder)
6. MSM Messenger History (folder)
7. Office 2004 Identities (folder)
8. Office X Identities (folder)
9. Printing Forms (folder)
10. Saved Attachments (folder)
11. AutoRecovery save or Order List (Word .doc)
12. AutoRecovery save of Research N (Word .doc)
13. AutoRecovery save of the Golden (Word .doc)
14. AutoRecovery save of Tooth ext (Word .doc)
15. Normal (Word template)

Inside the "Office 2004 Identities" folder I have two other folders:
1. Main Identity
2. Main Identity [Backed up 10-37-2005 17.35]

The Main Identity folder Backed-up is actually very small in size (16 KB)
and only contains a document inside entitled Rules and with the Entourage
logo on the icon.

It also has a false date on it - there's no such date as "10-37-2005". It
seems to be a remnant of some rebuild that you aborted, or maybe a first
attempt at upgrading from X that you aborted. Or just some backup from which
you already removed the Database file. Just get rid of it.

The Main Identity folder, however, contains the following documents inside:
1. Database
2. Mailing Lists
3. Old Database
4. Rules
5. Signatures

Questions:

1. Is this "Old Database" file inside the "Main Identity" folder the one I
should delete ? The sizes are as follows:
Database file = 2.08 GB
Old Database file = 2.9 GB

Yes. This "Old Database" file came along for the ride when you upgraded from
Entourage X to 2004 - it's the way that Entourage X (not 2004) did its
"backup files" when you did a rebuild back in X. You don't need it at all
any more, just trash it.

Assuming this is the right file to delete, I would actually only gain 0.82
GB in the overall size of my MUD. Does this sound right ?

There's no way of knowing now what size the Entourage X Database became at
the time you rebuilt it way back when, Whatever size it was then, you've
gone on adding to it, then converted it to an Entourage 2004 database, then
continued to add to it. (With the new 2004 methods of rebuilding, you now
get a date for the backup. There's no way of knowing how old this one is,
except that it predates your upgrade to 2004.)

2. Why do I have a "Rules" file inside the "Main Identity" folder and
another file also named "Rules" inside the "Main Identity [Backed up
10-37-2005 17.35]" folder ? Can one of these be deleted ?

Just delete the Backed-Up folder.

3. Why is there a need to keep the "Office X Identities" folder in the MUD
folder ? What is the purpose for this file if I have already upgraded to
Entourage 2004 ? The size of this folder is 1.1 GB and it could also save
some space although my guess is that removing it will not cause any
performance benefit. Is this right ?

If you are no longer using Office X at all (and why should you?) just delete
the entire "Office X Identities" folder. Save 1 GB.

Note that deleting the "Old Database" file will also give any "performance
benefit" either - unless you're so short of hard disk space and memory that
your computer is continually trying to use hard disk space for virtual
memory and paging in and out (in which case gaining 1 GB of space by any
means will help). Reboot to regain some real memory.

Somewhere you had a question about newsgroups. If you want to slim down your
Database without losing Newsgroup settings, you can control-click on the
News Server icon in your Folders List and choose Empty Cache. That will
delete all the old news messages from the newsgroups, but not lose the
newsgroups. However that does not reduce the size of your database - yet.
The (after also deleting old email messages and emptying Deleted Items
Folder) launch Entourage with Option down and do a Compact. That will
,reduce the size of your database, and make a new "Backed-Up" identity
folder which you can trash in due course. But don't do this every week - it
doesn't help much and all that disk rewriting is not so good for your disk.
You can do it a few times a year if you really want to.

Note that in Entourage 2004 with its enormous (multi-terabyte) capabilities,
deleting messages and reducing database size will not have a significant
effect on performance either. It's all so much smaller than the limits
anyway. Whereas in Entourage X a mail folder larger than 1500 messages would
perceptibly slow things down, in 2004 I'm not sure that you'd notice
performance issues even with a folder of 100,000 messages. Maybe doing a
Find.

Thank you very much once again for all your help and feedback.

Best regards,

Joseph

---

Dr. Joseph Chamberlain
Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery

If you look in the Office 2004 Identities folder, you'll find at least one
"[Backed up" folder. That's your old pre-rebuilt folder. You can trash it
(them) now if the rebuild was successful.

--
Paul Berkowitz
MVP MacOffice
Entourage FAQ Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/faq/index.html>
AppleScripts for Entourage: <http://macscripter.net/scriptbuilders/>

Please "Reply To Newsgroup" to reply to this message. Emails will be
ignored.

PLEASE always state which version of Microsoft Office you are using -
**2004**, X or 2001. It's often impossible to answer your questions
otherwise.

 

[Joseph Chamberlain, DDS]

Paul:

This is what I have inside the MUD:

1. Entourage Script Menu Items (folder)
2. Entourage Sound Sets (folder)
3. Entourage Temps (folder)
4. Explorer (folder)
5. Import Mappings (folder)
6. MSM Messenger History (folder)
7. Office 2004 Identities (folder)
8. Office X Identities (folder)
9. Printing Forms (folder)
10. Saved Attachments (folder)
11. AutoRecovery save or Order List (Word .doc)
12. AutoRecovery save of Research N (Word .doc)
13. AutoRecovery save of the Golden (Word .doc)
14. AutoRecovery save of Tooth ext (Word .doc)
15. Normal (Word template)

Inside the "Office 2004 Identities" folder I have two other folders:
1. Main Identity
2. Main Identity [Backed up 10-37-2005 17.35]

The Main Identity folder Backed-up is actually very small in size (16 KB)
and only contains a document inside entitled Rules and with the Entourage
logo on the icon.

It also has a false date on it - there's no such date as "10-37-2005". It
seems to be a remnant of some rebuild that you aborted, or maybe a first
attempt at upgrading from X that you aborted. Or just some backup from which
you already removed the Database file. Just get rid of it.

My mistake. I actually type it wrong. The file actually had 10-27-2005
instead of what I typed above, which is the date I tried to rebuild the
database the first time.

The Main Identity folder, however, contains the following documents inside:
1. Database
2. Mailing Lists
3. Old Database
4. Rules
5. Signatures

Questions:

1. Is this "Old Database" file inside the "Main Identity" folder the one I
should delete ? The sizes are as follows:
Database file = 2.08 GB
Old Database file = 2.9 GB

Yes. This "Old Database" file came along for the ride when you upgraded from
Entourage X to 2004 - it's the way that Entourage X (not 2004) did its
"backup files" when you did a rebuild back in X. You don't need it at all
any more, just trash it.

Assuming this is the right file to delete, I would actually only gain 0.82
GB in the overall size of my MUD. Does this sound right ?

There's no way of knowing now what size the Entourage X Database became at
the time you rebuilt it way back when, Whatever size it was then, you've
gone on adding to it, then converted it to an Entourage 2004 database, then
continued to add to it. (With the new 2004 methods of rebuilding, you now
get a date for the backup. There's no way of knowing how old this one is,
except that it predates your upgrade to 2004.)

2. Why do I have a "Rules" file inside the "Main Identity" folder and
another file also named "Rules" inside the "Main Identity [Backed up
10-37-2005 17.35]" folder ? Can one of these be deleted ?

Just delete the Backed-Up folder.

3. Why is there a need to keep the "Office X Identities" folder in the MUD
folder ? What is the purpose for this file if I have already upgraded to
Entourage 2004 ? The size of this folder is 1.1 GB and it could also save
some space although my guess is that removing it will not cause any
performance benefit. Is this right ?

If you are no longer using Office X at all (and why should you?) just delete
the entire "Office X Identities" folder. Save 1 GB.

Note that deleting the "Old Database" file will also give any "performance
benefit" either - unless you're so short of hard disk space and memory that
your computer is continually trying to use hard disk space for virtual
memory and paging in and out (in which case gaining 1 GB of space by any
means will help). Reboot to regain some real memory.

Somewhere you had a question about newsgroups. If you want to slim down your
Database without losing Newsgroup settings, you can control-click on the
News Server icon in your Folders List and choose Empty Cache. That will
delete all the old news messages from the newsgroups, but not lose the
newsgroups. However that does not reduce the size of your database - yet.
The (after also deleting old email messages and emptying Deleted Items
Folder) launch Entourage with Option down and do a Compact. That will
,reduce the size of your database, and make a new "Backed-Up" identity
folder which you can trash in due course. But don't do this every week - it
doesn't help much and all that disk rewriting is not so good for your disk.
You can do it a few times a year if you really want to.

Note that in Entourage 2004 with its enormous (multi-terabyte) capabilities,
deleting messages and reducing database size will not have a significant
effect on performance either. It's all so much smaller than the limits
anyway. Whereas in Entourage X a mail folder larger than 1500 messages would
perceptibly slow things down, in 2004 I'm not sure that you'd notice
performance issues even with a folder of 100,000 messages. Maybe doing a
Find.

Thank you very much once again for all your help and feedback.

Best regards,

Joseph

---

Dr. Joseph Chamberlain
Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery

If you look in the Office 2004 Identities folder, you'll find at least one
"[Backed up" folder. That's your old pre-rebuilt folder. You can trash it
(them) now if the rebuild was successful.

Paul and Daiya:

I just wanted to thank you for your help with my issue. I have been able to
rebuild my database and have its size reduced to about 1/3 by simply
following your instructions.

Aside from archiving the older Entourage X Identities folder, I also
archived the old databases inside the Entourage 2004 Identities folder (two
since I had rebuilt my database twice and it created a file named old
database and another named old database 1). This reduced my MUD folder which
was originally 4 GB and had become 6 GB after my first attempt at rebuilding
my database, to a folder that is now only 2 GB in size. This really
simplifies the process of synchronizing the MUD folder between my two
computers.

Thank you once again for all your help and guidance.

Best regards,

Joseph

 

[Joseph Chamberlain, DDS]

< snip >

It also has a false date on it - there's no such date as "10-37-2005". It
seems to be a remnant of some rebuild that you aborted, or maybe a first
attempt at upgrading from X that you aborted. Or just some backup from which
you already removed the Database file. Just get rid of it.

My mistake. I actually type it wrong. The file actually had 10-27-2005
instead of what I typed above, which is the date I tried to rebuild the
database the first time.

The Main Identity folder, however, contains the following documents inside:
1. Database
2. Mailing Lists
3. Old Database
4. Rules
5. Signatures

Questions:

1. Is this "Old Database" file inside the "Main Identity" folder the one I
should delete ? The sizes are as follows:
Database file = 2.08 GB
Old Database file = 2.9 GB

Yes. This "Old Database" file came along for the ride when you upgraded from
Entourage X to 2004 - it's the way that Entourage X (not 2004) did its
"backup files" when you did a rebuild back in X. You don't need it at all
any more, just trash it.

Assuming this is the right file to delete, I would actually only gain 0.82
GB in the overall size of my MUD. Does this sound right ?

There's no way of knowing now what size the Entourage X Database became at
the time you rebuilt it way back when, Whatever size it was then, you've
gone on adding to it, then converted it to an Entourage 2004 database, then
continued to add to it. (With the new 2004 methods of rebuilding, you now
get a date for the backup. There's no way of knowing how old this one is,
except that it predates your upgrade to 2004.)

2. Why do I have a "Rules" file inside the "Main Identity" folder and
another file also named "Rules" inside the "Main Identity [Backed up
10-37-2005 17.35]" folder ? Can one of these be deleted ?

Just delete the Backed-Up folder.

3. Why is there a need to keep the "Office X Identities" folder in the MUD
folder ? What is the purpose for this file if I have already upgraded to
Entourage 2004 ? The size of this folder is 1.1 GB and it could also save
some space although my guess is that removing it will not cause any
performance benefit. Is this right ?

If you are no longer using Office X at all (and why should you?) just delete
the entire "Office X Identities" folder. Save 1 GB.

Note that deleting the "Old Database" file will also give any "performance
benefit" either - unless you're so short of hard disk space and memory that
your computer is continually trying to use hard disk space for virtual
memory and paging in and out (in which case gaining 1 GB of space by any
means will help). Reboot to regain some real memory.

Somewhere you had a question about newsgroups. If you want to slim down your
Database without losing Newsgroup settings, you can control-click on the
News Server icon in your Folders List and choose Empty Cache. That will
delete all the old news messages from the newsgroups, but not lose the
newsgroups. However that does not reduce the size of your database - yet.
The (after also deleting old email messages and emptying Deleted Items
Folder) launch Entourage with Option down and do a Compact. That will
,reduce the size of your database, and make a new "Backed-Up" identity
folder which you can trash in due course. But don't do this every week - it
doesn't help much and all that disk rewriting is not so good for your disk.
You can do it a few times a year if you really want to.

Note that in Entourage 2004 with its enormous (multi-terabyte) capabilities,
deleting messages and reducing database size will not have a significant
effect on performance either. It's all so much smaller than the limits
anyway. Whereas in Entourage X a mail folder larger than 1500 messages would
perceptibly slow things down, in 2004 I'm not sure that you'd notice
performance issues even with a folder of 100,000 messages. Maybe doing a
Find.

<snip>

If you look in the Office 2004 Identities folder, you'll find at least one
"[Backed up" folder. That's your old pre-rebuilt folder. You can trash it
(them) now if the rebuild was successful.

Paul and Daiya:

I just wanted to thank you for your help with my issue. I have been able to
rebuild my database and have its size reduced to about 1/3 by simply
following your instructions.

Aside from archiving the older Entourage X Identities folder, I also
archived the old databases inside the Entourage 2004 Identities folder (two
since I had rebuilt my database twice and it created a file named old
database and another named old database 1). This reduced my MUD folder which
was originally 4 GB and had become 6 GB after my first attempt at rebuilding
my database, to a folder that is now only 2 GB in size. This really
simplifies the process of synchronizing the MUD folder between my two
computers.

Thank you once again for all your help and guidance.

Best regards,

Joseph