thanks for the idea, it gave me hope which lasted until the portable restore was completed lol. the portable file size was about 15% of the original. but the restored company file is 500kb bigger then the original...

something is very wrong with this company file. we only have about 1300 names but the file size is 367mb. it doesnt make sense to me. 

i have to find a way to shrink it because i think its corrupt somehow. thus the deleting of stuff yesterday.

i will try today the condensing data option as a last resort to see if that helps. 

n.b.: after the deletions yesterday and file increase, i closed it. this morning i found the file size smaller then it was yesterday but exactly the same as it was before i started deleting. attached is a screenshot - top is before i started deleting yesterday, bottom is today.