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Hi Rick, sorry but my availability here is spotty at best.
BTW... everyone is free to call me R6 for short. :)
There is a lot to be said about this. Not sure I can say it all, but here are some general thoughts that come to mind.
* I think there are two major parts to this operation. Part 1 is about how you want to divide your file up. If, for example the file is about Dogs, Cats and Birds, maybe you want a separate file for each. I would have a clear idea of how I want to break it up before I start. That's something you will need to determine.
Part 2 is the technical part. Here are some thoughts on that.
* The first thing I would do is to try my best to make sure I am working with an uncorrupted file. Why? Because the best way to split up the file is probably to base all three files on the original and subtract (delete) what you don't want from each file rather than adding it to a new file. That may save you a lot of work and potential error. So you want to be sure that file is intact.
* Best way I know to do this is the File/Recovery routine we discussed. However, there is an important nuance here. You mentioned it used Method 1 to recover the file. That's a good sign. BUT... I would run the recovery again and watch the screen very carefully. Sometimes it runs Method 1 for a while and then suddenly runs Method 2. And sometimes the Method 2 message only flashes for a second or two. So watch the screen very carefully the entire time the recovery is running to make sure the dialog never mentions Method 2.
If you only see Method 1 again, then its a pretty good indication that the file should be okay.
*IMPORTANT* When you run the recovery, make sure it's a file you *have not* already run it on (i.e. use one of the recent backups before you ran it before.) Otherwise this test is invalid.
* I'd also want to get some kind of better handle on why your file is so big. Until that can be explained I wouldn't be completely comfortable splitting it up and going forward with it (versus starting with all brand new files). Do you tend to use a lot of Text folders and type a lot of text into them? Do you have a lot of items that include a very large amount of text? If you've eliminated the embedded files, that's one of the few explanations I can think of that would make your file so large even with the full boat of ~16k items that it has. There would have to be a huge amount of text, not just a few words for each item tree.
*This next part you may or may not not like so much, but I will explain my reasoning. I would get and install Slang's Ecco Extension. One reason why is that you can run a recovery on that same recent backup and it will preserve almost all of your formatting and configuration -- whereas the native Ecco you are using now will lose a lot of formatting and configuration upon running that recovery. The recovery process with EE also has a number of other improvements that make it superior to the one native Ecco has. It's pretty solid. In addition, EE will take your Ecco to a new level. Even if you don't use the more advanced features, it fixes some bugs and it is there for you if you want to get deeper into it.
This is just a suggestion, if you are happy with the file after the recovery the way it is, it isn't necessary.
* Assuming the file checks out good above and you are ready to start splitting it up, I think that no matter how you decide to proceed you will have to do a lot of manual manipulation of your data. After all, there really isn't a any good automated way to avoid having to make a decision about every item as to which file you want it to be in. (depending on how your file is structured, however, you may be able to use sorting and filtering to allocate groups of items to a different file all at once). But here are some thoughts to maybe help.
* I might start by deleting everything you can find that you don't need if you haven't already done that. Your file is indeed on the upper edge of the safety zone and you don't want it to become unreadable, The more items you can delete the better the chance of avoiding further complications.
* Consider creating a checkmark column for each of the files you want to create (for example a column each for Dogs, Cats and Birds). Then you can just check that column for each item you want to include in each file. That will make it easy to delete Dog related items from the Cat file, etc. Then create 3 copies of your file and filter by these columns to show the things you want to delete and delete them. Each of the 3 files will then include only the items you didn't delete.
I realize that it might be way more complicated than this. For example, what if you have a TLI about Dogs, and an SLI about Cats? But this is just an overview of some related thoughts. Hopefully, your file is such that there are not a lot of complications like this. A lot depends on your decision about how you want to divide it up. A careful choice in that regard can make a big difference in how easy or hard it will be,
Hope something here is helpful.