When you have a large mail database in Entourage, you may find that there are times when Entourage takes up a lot of system resources leading to disk churn and slow response. If this is happening to you, it's probably being caused by the database integrity check that Entourage performs. If you like, you can turn this check off. Of course, turning it off may lead to problems in your mail data, so make sure you perform regular backups just in case.

To turn off the integrity check in Entourage, launch Entourage while holding down the command key, this will start the Entourage database manager utility. Check the button next to "Set database preferences" and then push the Continue button. On the next screen there will be a check box labeled "Perform database integrity check in the background", uncheck this box and then click Save.

Your automatic database check is now turned off, and you should not run into the problem of Entourage using lots of system resources. If you turn this check off, it's a good idea to perform a manual database check on a regular (monthly or so) basis. You can do this by starting Entourage while holding down the command key and then select the "Verify database integrity" option.