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We distribute an application that uses an MS Access .mdb file. Somebody has noticed that after opening the file in MS Access the file size shrinks a lot. That suggests that the file is a good candidate for compacting, but we don’t supply the means for our users to do that.
So, my question is, does it matter? Do we care? What bad things can happen if our users never compact the database?
In addition to making your database smaller, it’ll recompute the indexes on your tables and defragment your tables which can make access faster. It’ll also find any inconsistencies that should never happen in your database, but might, due to bugs or crashes in Access.
It’s not totally without risk though — a bug in Access 2007 would occasionally delete your database during the process.
So it’s generally a good thing to do, but pair it with a good backup routine. With the backup in place, you can also recover from any ‘unrecoverable’ compact and repair problems with a minimum of data loss.