Once you have manually emptied the Deleted Items folder, the attachments are effectively gone. I think, however, you have a more fundamental misunderstanding. Even if you rebuild the database and delete the old database, the information is still physically present on disk until such time as another file is created that is written into the same sectors.
Simplifying the situation a bit: a disk is made up of a large number of sectors, which can store a block of data. When you create a file, some number of sectors are allocated to the file and the data is written into the file. When you delete the file, nothing happens to the data in the file, instead, the sectors that were allocated to the file are returned to the free list to be allocated to another file when you create it. Not until you create another file is the data actually removed from disk (overwritten). With Entourage's database, Entourage has created a second free list indicating what sections of the database are allocated to messages, events, contacts, etc. When you empty the deleted items folder, Entourage returns the sectors of the database allocated to the messages in the deleted items folder to its own free list, but not to the file system free list. Thus the file appears to be the same size, even though there is "empty" space in the file. When new messages arrive, they are placed in this empty space (and this is when the data from old messages is actually erased). If there is not enough empty space on Entourage's database free list, then Entourage will as the file system for more sectors for the database file, and the database file grows in size a bit. -- Eric Hildum > From: Beth Rosengard<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Reply-To: "Entourage:mac Talk" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Date: Mon, 22 Jul 2002 14:45:19 -0700 > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Re: Rebuilding E2001 Database > > On Sun, 21 Jul 2002 23:58:51 -0400 Helen Glazer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > wrote: > > The computer may not yet be, as Beth put it above, "broke" by having this > stuff sitting there, but on the other hand, a lot of those deleted items > have attachments with the hallmarks of the SirCam and Klez virus. Those > attachments are unopened, true, but I want them utterly gone--and I don't > want to store hundreds of MBs of stuff I've already deleted. Or is there a > place to set the size limit of the Entourage databases for the various > identities so that they automatically get overwritten regularly without a > rebuild? If so, please share what you know. Thanks! -- To unsubscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> archives: <http://www.mail-archive.com/entourage-talk%40lists.letterrip.com/> old-archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/entourage-talk%40lists.boingo.com/>
