You must be an ArcSDE database server administrator or a geodatabase administrator to compress a geodatabase. The Compress Database function will be deactivated if you are not in one of these two roles.

While the compress operation is running, a progress bar will appear, which will advance until compress is complete.

1. In the Catalog tree, connect to the database server that contains the geodatabase you want to compress.
2. Right-click the geodatabase you want to compress.
3. Choose Administration from the geodatabase context menu and click Compress Database.

Tips To find out when the geodatabase was last compressed, click the Administration tab on the Geodatabase Properties dialog box. The date of the last compression will appear in the Compress section. After you have compressed the database, you should update the statistics. For instructions on how to do this, see Updating statistics on geodatabases on ArcSDE database servers.