Project Indexes and schedules significantly increasing file size

[Kelly at Kanvi Homes]

I examined our latest project with the following specs:

- 3000 sq ft two story home w/ walkout basement & triple garage

- fully modeled in 3D with a number of downloaded objects, mostly plumbing fixtures from Kohler, but no 3D furniture

- 91 quantity schedules

- 8 project indexes

- embedded library is empty

The final size of this file was 345,138 kb and performance in saving, switching views, updating drawings, etc is noticeably slow.

Major contributors to file size were 4 sections (14,245 kb), 6 elevations (5,399 kb), 44 interior elevations (18,643 kb), and favorites (8,279 kb), all of which are to be expected for a project like this. However, it turns out that 58% of the file size was in the schedules (154,862 kb) and project indexes (46,102 kb). 

Even in our empty template, which starts at 270,237 kb with nothing modeled, the schedules contribute 145,380 kb and the project indexes are 40,279 kb, or 69% of our template file size. Why are the schedules so big if there is nothing modeled?

I'm curious how much your project indexes and schedules are affecting your file size and what you have done to improve it???

Operating system used: Mac Intel-based 10.0.19045