I am running Mac OS 10.6.8 on a Mac Book Pro with 4 GB of RAM.

I have three accounts set up in Outlook 2011 -- two Exchange accounts on a corporate server and one Gmail account. My database is just under 1 GB. I have a considerable amount of mail stored in the computers under "On this computer."

In the last week the program has become unusably slow. Double-clicking on a message and opening it takes about 15 seconds. I get the spinning beach ball nearly every time I open a message.

Should I rebuild my database? Trash preferences? Please help. I may have to abandon ship.

Thanks.