While there isn't much good I like to say about MicroSoft, they do make a half way decent e-mail program for the Mac. If you're like me, you probably don't delete old mail very often or possibly at all. Well, there is a winning way to keep that old mail - but at the same time save a lot of space + speed things up too. OWC's Steve Manke has the scoop. The procedure described here was intended for use with Entourage Office X. It should work equally well with Office 2001 for OS 9.

Many users of MS Entourage have noticed a consistent decrease in performance as time goes on. This is usually due to the size of Entourage's email database. There is an easy way to manage the size of the database once you understand what contributes to its size.

Every time you receive an email, it is filed in the database. That does not have much of an effect on the size of the database, but if the email you received had an attachment, that attachment is saved in the database as well. No matter what the attachment was, or how large it was, it is added to the database!

Deleting attachments for Entourage is easy. Each folder you have created to manage your email can be handled independently. This makes easy to remove all attachments from email stored in your Inbox, or from your Sent Mail. Just select the email folder you want to purge. Once the messages appear on the right side of your screen, select them all and choose Remove All Attachments from the Message menu. Keep in mind, once you choose this option, there is not turning back. Your attachments will be permanently removed. Immediately above the Remove All Attachments option in the Message menu is Save All Attachments. This makes it easy to dump all of the attachments to a directory on your hard drive prior to removing them from Entourage. (It's a nice feature, but don't expect to be able to easily distinguish one attachment from the next after they have been saved there).

Depending on how many messages have attachments, this could take some time. Once you have finished, it is a good idea to rebuild Entourage's database. This will reorganize the data file and epitomize it for peek performance. To do this, quit out of Entourage. Hold down the Option key and launch Entourage. You will receive a dialog box asking you what type of rebuild you would like to do. A Typical Rebuild is the best choice. An Advanced Rebuild usually only needed if you are having serious problems with the software. It is unnecessary in this context.

Once you are done with the rebuild, your email package should be running as well as it did the day you installed it.

Side Note: Backing Up You Email
(The procedure described here was intended for use with Entourage Office X. It should work equally well with Office 2001 for OS 9.)

If you are interested in backing up your Entourage database prior to removing the attachments, or would like to back it up on a regular basis, you can find it in your Home Directory/Documents/Microsoft User Data. Backing up the entire Microsoft User Data directory to another hard drive will keep your email archive intact and safe through just about anything!