Example showing how this command helps me to reduce size of my database after deleting records from table.
1) Take Backup of your Production Database. 2) Take Backup of Table Scripts of your Production Database. 3) Create Test Database in Local Environment 5) Run Tables creation script 6) Restore Production Database to Test Database in local environment I am assuming you are familiar with above steps, actual steps begin after this. I am also assuming that you have already deleted unwanted records in table. 7) Check Size of your Database Exec sp_spaceused 8) Run Update Usage command DBCC UPDATEUSAGE(0) 9) Check Size of your Database Exec sp_spaceused 10) Run Shrink Database command DBCC SHRINKDATABASE(0) 11) Check Size of your Database Exec sp_spaceused If everything goes smooth then you would see that your database size is reduced.