cocoaforge

Yesterday I located my "ByObject" folder. I found this out because Im looking for an area where I can adjust the text flow in my window. Im not sure but this seemed to help.
I have learn that I can "delete" this file and it will return with a clean slate.
I had over 800 screen names in my "ByObject" folder thus slowing or I feel "bogging" my system down. Hope this help others in someway.
I think you need to have a program or reprogram this "ByObjects" to delete these files/folders automatically. Im not even sure this would help, But I have noticed a difference in my chat performance.

There is some discussion among the devs about reworking the ByObjects pref system, but nothing conclusive yet.

It should be noted that some information on individual contacts is stored in ByObjects, so users might not necessarily want to just delete the whole folder.

Deleting that stuff right now would drop info about the users, I'd recommend not doing it willy nilly like you did.

Millions of items in that folder would not cause a slowdown.

Doing this is potentially destructive to your Adium setup as you can lose contact groupings, notes, and other settings stored there. Unless a user is fully aware of what a particular file* is for then deleting it is risky business and should not be done.

* not necessarily every file in the entire computer, but when you're in Application Support and think to explore.

(anecdotal fact: there are some who have 3 to 5 times as many ByObject files without any performance degradation, it might simply be an anecdotal oddity that this relationship appeared to you)