Question : Why compacting is not freeing up space on the domino server?

We have users who delete lot of their old emails and especially emails with the big attachments and then they empty their trash folder.

Then I compact their mailboxes but it doesn't free up space on the server why? It's still using the same disk space/and database size is still the same.

I went to the console and ran the command load compact but still the same.

Please help!

Answer : Why compacting is not freeing up space on the domino server?

If you're using transaction logging then the default style of compacting is "in-place compacting with space recovery only". This frees up unused space in a database but doesn't reduce the size of the db on disk . If you're not using transaction logging then the default style, with no switches specified should reduce disk space. The use of the "-b" or "-B" switches can override default styles. There is an argument that says why bother reducing disk space if you don't need to. The "in-place compacting with space recovery only" style is the quickest and uses least resources. Also it doesn't assign a new database instance i.d (DBIID) so you don't need to do a full backup.
So, are you using transaction logging and what switches do you specify when you invoke compact?