Archiving never seems to reduce my mail file size, help!

[leemoreau]

Hey everyone,

Okay I need some help here. I use Lotus notes for email. The settings that I have are that my mail file is local, and that I just replicate every couple of minutes. I find this is the best way as it makes Notes run the fastest.

Here's my issue, I constantly get emails saying my mail file is approaching its maximum size. When I click File, Database then Properties, and then click the second "i" tab, it will show something like "Disk Space 230MB Documents: 2401" If I press % Used, it will say like 91.5% for example. I just archived SO much email, like months worth, deleted attachments, everything and replicated. Then it goes to 97.5% used when I press that, and says Disk Space: 287MB??

I don't get this, is it because I'm setting it to use local for mail and not server or something? I just don't understand how I can archive, and then the disk space used goes higher, or if it does go down, it goes down by only a few MB even if I archive tons of mail and huge attachments, please help!

 

[m4ilm4n]

Notes does not reclaim the space from deleted or archived documents until the database is compacted.

 

[leemoreau]

How long does compacting take? Normally I hit it and it says background compacting request submitted. That's what I did last night and it went down a little when I got in, but still not by much. What does % Used mean? Because that was at 60% then I did compact, and it went to 95%. I assumed it meant % used of max mail size allowed but guessing not?

 

[koresnordic]

When you delete an e-mail, it doesn't reduce the size of the file, it just marks the space in the existing mail file as available. If you then receive more mail, it fills up the holes left by the deleted items. So 60% used means that there is 40% of the file that is available for new mail, and until this is filled, then the mail size will not increase. There is a however here, If a new mail doesn't fit in a space it will be tagged onto the end and the file size will increase. It is a bit like your hard drive in that occasionally you need to defrag it. This is the compact option. it pushes the data together and removes the space. So when you see the 95% used it means there is little free space and most new mail will increase the size of the file.





Graham