Can I compact my Microsoft Entourage mail database?

Nice job figuring how to move your Microsoft Office identity from one computer to another. I have been doing that for years when I had a desktop machine as my main computer and a laptop just for travel. Now, however, I use my laptop for everything, even in the office, so it's simplified matters a bit.

Microsoft does include a compression, repair and backup utility with Microsoft Entourage that I have always thought should be launched automatically every thirty days or with some other regular frequency so that if something dreadful does happen and your database does end up corrupt, you lose a few weeks of mail, not everything.

However, you can also just add a monthly reminder to iCal or a similar calendar program and fortunately it is easy to launch Microsoft Database Utility. In fact, do so now: quit Entourage, then relaunch while holding down the Option key on your keyboard.

Instead of Entourage launching as usual, you should see the Database Utility start up instead and present you with this:

As you can see, there are some useful capabilities here!

Choose "Compact database" for what you seek, and press "Continue". Now you'll see:

and, a short while later (or a long time later, if you have a huge mail archive like I do):

And then, finally:

That should reduce your archive size considerably if you have indeed removed a lot of email messages, and should also have the delightful side benefit of making Entourage zippier on your new MacBook Pro.