SQL database size

[mehmet11]

How can I decrease SQL database size? It makes difficult to backup. (Larger than 300 Mb)

[a10]

Am also interested in any guidelines. F.ex. have a large smf_log_search_words, can it be emptied ?

[J-Bird]

I ALSO am interested in a response to this topic.

[cicka]

You can truncate the unimportant logs table like the session, smf_log_search_words etc.

[MrPhil]

As a general rule, the "log_*" tables don't contain information needed for day-to-day operations. They're more, ah, "log" files, recording what happened in the past. Therefore, if you're squeezed for DB space, you can consider emptying (not dropping) selected log files. Note that log_errors tends to get huge -- be sure to address common errors and regularly trim it down from the Admin panel -- that may be enough. If you're scared to do this, most systems (with phpMyAdmin) will let you selectively dump (back up) tables -- you can dump the log files to .sql backups before emptying them out, so they can be restored if necessary.