If I haven’t made it apparent in past posts/tweets, OmniFocus is my second brain and rely upon it for keeping all the tasks in my personal and professional lives in sync and moving forward…
So, here’s my monthly OmniFocus compacting routine which keeps the size of my database small, and speeds up the opening of OmniFocus on my iPhone. I have shaved MBs of my database in the past, as a matter of fact, the first time I did this whole process I reduced my database from 21 MB to 750 KB. That said, I now probably reduce it by about 75% (from ~600KB down to ~150KB) First off, I use MobileMe to keep my sync in the cloud but this process could easily be adapted if you sync via other methods 0. I am starting with step 0 because this is optional but I would recommend it, archive your old data:File > Move Old Data to Archive…
NOTE: I have an OmniFocus recurring task that appears and gets me to do this at the end of each month, so I archive up the 1st of the current month. 1. Clean up & Sync your desktop version so that it is current with the MobileMe version 2. Sync your iPhone version so that it is current with the MobileMe version 3. repeat steps 1 & 2 just to be certain no last second changes get missed (yes I’m paranoid about my data) 4. Backup your desktop database in case bad things happen (see step #3 re: data paranoia):
File > Back Up Database…
NOTE: For informative purposes, take note of the size of this database so you can compare it to the post-compacted version 5. Export your database to a temporary file you will be able to locate (say on your desktop):
File > Export…
NOTE: This is critical. make sure the File Format is OmniFocus Document 6. Now restore that exported and compacted version:
File > Revert to Database Backup… and click Restore 7. Backup your desktop database
NOTE: This is where you will be able to see the file size difference from step #4 8. Sync your desktop version first
NOTE: if you get a warning saying that the databases are out of sync, choose to have the desktop override the MobileMe one but only this once 9. Now sync your iPhone version
NOTE: if you get a warning saying that the databases are out of sync, choose to have the MobileMe override the iPhone one but only this once Congrats, you’ve just trimmed some fat and should notice a decent speed bump on both platforms but definitely more so on your iPhone If you do this monthly, you shouldn’t get the warnings in steps #8 and #9 as things will be similar enough to avoid conflicts.
