"Windows Mail can compact the message store"

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I've had Vista installed for almost a month now and this evening I keep
getting a message when I close Windows Mail that says:

"Windows Mail can compact the message store. This can take a few minutes."
and asks "OK or Cancel"

What is this?
 
When you delete messages the space isn't necessarily freed up. By compacting
the store occasionally, every 100 shutdowns by default, it keeps the store
smaller than it otherwise would be. This is a good thing BTW.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!
 
Richard Urban said:
When you delete messages the space isn't necessarily freed up. By
compacting the store occasionally, every 100 shutdowns by default, it
keeps the store smaller than it otherwise would be. This is a good thing
BTW.
Click to expand...


Actually, WinMail does not keep the message itself in the database. It does
store all sorts of information about the message there, though, and that
space is not recovered until the database is compacted. Steve Cochran has
written a nice little free program dealing with the database, WMUtil:
http://www.oehelp.com/WMUtil/Default.aspx
 
What are the advantages of that program?

You can compact the DB yourself. To repair the DB, seems to me you are
better off just deleting it and letting it rebuild. Even with 7,000+ emails
it didn't take very long.

Clean blank files?

Thanks
 
Justin said:
What are the advantages of that program?

You can compact the DB yourself. To repair the DB, seems to me you are
better off just deleting it and letting it rebuild. Even with 7,000+
emails it didn't take very long.
Click to expand...


I don't see how to compact the database yourself, and deleting it must be
done in both locations and then the rebuilding causes me problems with
duplicate messages.
 
Frank Saunders said:
I don't see how to compact the database yourself, and deleting it must be
done in both locations and then the rebuilding causes me problems with
duplicate messages.
Click to expand...

Dups - That's odd. No problems here.

I believe by default WM will compact every 100 runs. Change it to 1 and
exit. Then put it back.
 
So what I get from this is that it is a good thing to compact the message
store? I have just been saying no, because I wasn't sure what it was.
Thanks.
 
Only if you delete a lot of email. For the average user, doing this every
other month can help keep your WM app running at full speed.
 
Carol in GA said:
I've had Vista installed for almost a month now and this evening I keep
getting a message when I close Windows Mail that says:

"Windows Mail can compact the message store. This can take a few minutes."
and asks "OK or Cancel"

What is this?
Click to expand...
 
when you delete mail it leaves holes in the data base.
compacting just gets rid of the holes and makes WM run more smoothly.
just do not disturb the compacting till it gets done.
personally I find that 100 closing is too long to wait, and have mine set to compact at 5 closings.



(e-mail address removed)
 
I'm trying to post this as a new question ... but that button is not
responding to enable me to do so ... what a pain!! Anyway ... is there any
way this notification can be turned off? I keep getting it and it's very
annoying...
 
If you want the message store to be compacted occasionally (highly
desirable) you will need to see this message to allow you to choose to do
so.

You can change the frequency of the compacts. On a fresh install of Vista -
not an upgrade from Windows XP - the default is once for every 100 times you
exit Windows Mail. I would NOT suggest you go any higher that this setting.
I have it set to compact every 25 exits.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!
 
Carol in GA said:
I've had Vista installed for almost a month now and this evening I keep
getting a message when I close Windows Mail that says:

"Windows Mail can compact the message store. This can take a few minutes."
and asks "OK or Cancel"

What is this?
Click to expand...
 
where do they go?

I have not been able to locate e mails like I could with OUTLOOK

??THANKS
JIM
 
I agree very much
--


Chaz


Richard Urban said:
When you delete messages the space isn't necessarily freed up. By compacting
the store occasionally, every 100 shutdowns by default, it keeps the store
smaller than it otherwise would be. This is a good thing BTW.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!
Click to expand...
 
Let it do its thing. The message store needs to be compacted periodically.

Gary VanderMolen
 
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