I just fielded the second call in 2 weeks concerning this. The users both had W2K, and the file size of their local mail file was 5GB and 10.2GB respectively where on the server the file size is 380MB and 780MB respectively.
The users called in complaining their laptops were full. Of course they were … 10/18 GB is 1/3 of the total space.
The weird thing is they could still replicate (provided they didn’t get mail too large to fill the HD) and they could delete a lot of documents which were being propagated to the server, but their local mail file never decreased.
I am suspecting that the files don’t get compacted which is why the files were so HUGE.
I didn’t really have time to troubleshoot, so I deleted the mail files and pulled a new local replica of the databases.
As soon as this was done, the OS was reporting many Gigs of free space in both cases.
How can I check if the local databases are being compacted on local on a regular basis?
Subject: mail size misreported on local users
Hi !Databases are not automatically compacted in LOCAL …
Right database click and compact does not have waited results, because it does not compact free spaces and files in databases.
In shell, in the lotus notes directory, launch that command (it is the same command that on server)
ncompact -B dbname.nsf
it will just ask user password for default location.
Have a good day !
Subject: RE: mail size misreported on local users
Thanks for the response. I doubt most of the remote users will be able to do that.
Some of them are as dumb as a box of rocks, so for them it’s an even worse lost cause.
I’ll try what you suggested though for the more savvy users …
You talk about a shell … sort of like a server console … how do you get to that command prompt? Which executable do you launch to get a console without Notes started?
Are you talking about the regular cmd DOS command window? I doubtr that will accept Notes commands.
Let me know what you’re referring to if you have a minute for my rock hehe 
Luc
Subject: RE: mail size misreported on local users
It will accept “notes commands”, after a fashion. You can run NCOMPACT.EXE with the appropriate switches from a login script, batch file, or whatever.
Subject: RE: mail size misreported on local users
oh cool. I didn’t know that. Thanks Stan.
We recently had an issue with our main NAB and were unable to compact it when the server was running. However, that particular server is on iSeries (AS/400) and I have read it’s not this straight-forward, but still doable.
Thanks for the info, I’ll definately put it to good use on other W2K3 servers though.
Luc