Restoring transactions from the cloud

Unknown

Hello.  I have kind of a big problem and I am hoping someone can answer a question for me.  I lost a hard drive yesterday on my laptop and to my horror i found that the quicken file from my laptop hasnt been backed up in 3 months.  I do use quicken mobile and therefore have my data synced to the quicken cloud as resent as yesterday.  My hope is to use quicken cloud to restore the data from last 3 months onto my new laptop.  I am hoping this is possible:  can you please check my steps below and see if I understand the workflow correctly.
1. Install latest quicken
2. Open my latest quicken file (from 3 months ago)
3. Sign in to quicken cloud from my laptop
4. Go to Mobile and Alerts
5. Synchronize with Quicken Cloud

My hope that these steps will pull data FROM the cloud onto my laptop and therefore will restore all my transaction to the latest version available from the cloud, and NOT vise versa, where the laptop version will overwrite the cloud version and all of my data will be lost.  I know that i can create a transaction on my mobile and once synced it will show up in my desktop version.

Thank you in advance for your time and attention.  I hope my description makes sense.

I use Latest Quicken Premier 2017 and my mobile version is updated to the latest on my iphone's schedule.

mshiggins

The cloud sync is not a back up. You will not be able to restore data from the cloud.

Unknown

Thank you for your time and your quick reply. I do have a follow up question though: if I _create_ a transaction on the mobile it syncs to my desktop version: this would seem to prove that the communication is two-way. Wouldn't that mean that any transactions that already _exist_ in the cloud would get synced to my desktop version once I request it? What is the difference? Just trying to understand.

mshiggins

concentriq said:

Thank you for your time and your quick reply. I do have a follow up question though: if I _create_ a transaction on the mobile it syncs to my desktop version: this would seem to prove that the communication is two-way. Wouldn't that mean that any transactions that already _exist_ in the cloud would get synced to my desktop version once I request it? What is the difference? Just trying to understand.

You can certainly try it. But I don't think it will have the outcome you are hoping for.

NotACPA

concentriq said:

Thank you for your time and your quick reply. I do have a follow up question though: if I _create_ a transaction on the mobile it syncs to my desktop version: this would seem to prove that the communication is two-way. Wouldn't that mean that any transactions that already _exist_ in the cloud would get synced to my desktop version once I request it? What is the difference? Just trying to understand.

@concentriq, there's a missing piece to your equation.
When there's a discrepancy between the Mobile and the desktop, say because you've deleted something on the desktop, the Desktop version always wins.

Transactions input on the mobile haven't been synched, i.e., are new, aren't encountering a deletion on the desktop side ... so they're ok.
But a transaction/category/etc on the Mobile can re-create a deleted counterpart on the desktop.

NotACPA

concentriq said:

Thank you for your time and your quick reply. I do have a follow up question though: if I _create_ a transaction on the mobile it syncs to my desktop version: this would seem to prove that the communication is two-way. Wouldn't that mean that any transactions that already _exist_ in the cloud would get synced to my desktop version once I request it? What is the difference? Just trying to understand.

See the reply from Quicken Tamara in this thread: https://getsatisfaction.com/quickencommunity/topics/restore-transaction-categories-from-mobile-to-de...

markus1957

concentriq said:

Thank you for your time and your quick reply. I do have a follow up question though: if I _create_ a transaction on the mobile it syncs to my desktop version: this would seem to prove that the communication is two-way. Wouldn't that mean that any transactions that already _exist_ in the cloud would get synced to my desktop version once I request it? What is the difference? Just trying to understand.

An older restored desktop file, specifically a backup file created from the deleted file and that was setup for mobile syncing at the time of the backup using the same Intuit ID as the deleted file will sync with mobile and you will see some spending account transactions from the cloud sync to your desktop. No investment transactions will be restored as they are not synced in the mobile cloud process.

I have actually seen this effect in a test file while playing around with mobile features. I viewed it as a negative effect because I was testing the ability to restore from an earlier file and found that the restoration was unexpectedly perturbed with more recent mobile cloud data. As I recall there was a setting in Mobile as to how far back in time transactions were synced with mobile so that may impact how far back in time this feature would be useful for file restoration.

Unknown

concentriq said:

Thank you for your time and your quick reply. I do have a follow up question though: if I _create_ a transaction on the mobile it syncs to my desktop version: this would seem to prove that the communication is two-way. Wouldn't that mean that any transactions that already _exist_ in the cloud would get synced to my desktop version once I request it? What is the difference? Just trying to understand.

markus1957:  lets hope youre right:  New hardware arrived today.  I will be trying this and will post the results.  Since my last desktop copy is 3 month old I only need 3 month worth of data form the could and only 4 accounts really:  none are investment accounts, so I am clear there.

Unknown

concentriq said:

Thank you for your time and your quick reply. I do have a follow up question though: if I _create_ a transaction on the mobile it syncs to my desktop version: this would seem to prove that the communication is two-way. Wouldn't that mean that any transactions that already _exist_ in the cloud would get synced to my desktop version once I request it? What is the difference? Just trying to understand.

NotACPA.  Thank you:  I am sure you meant "transaction/category/etc on the Mobile CAN'T re-create a deleted counterpart on the desktop".

Unknown

concentriq said:

Thank you for your time and your quick reply. I do have a follow up question though: if I _create_ a transaction on the mobile it syncs to my desktop version: this would seem to prove that the communication is two-way. Wouldn't that mean that any transactions that already _exist_ in the cloud would get synced to my desktop version once I request it? What is the difference? Just trying to understand.

I am also assuming that there isnt some way to create a report from the mobile version with some transaction information (like categories/splits/Tags/Notes within each transaction) and email it to myself or store it:  Id be happy to manually re-enter the data if needed:  its only 3 month worth of cash transactions that are most important:  been using quicken to keep track of spending on a couple of projects in addition to just general personal finance management.

splasher

concentriq said:

Thank you for your time and your quick reply. I do have a follow up question though: if I _create_ a transaction on the mobile it syncs to my desktop version: this would seem to prove that the communication is two-way. Wouldn't that mean that any transactions that already _exist_ in the cloud would get synced to my desktop version once I request it? What is the difference? Just trying to understand.

I know if I was writing a program that synced information, there would be a flag on each piece of information to say it had been synced and would not need syncing again.
With that scheme in mind, even though the syncing is two-way, there is nothing to get QMobile to send the data to the desktop and as stated by Q-Tamara:

The desktop data is the source of truth and will always win the conflict.

Unknown

concentriq said:

Thank you for your time and your quick reply. I do have a follow up question though: if I _create_ a transaction on the mobile it syncs to my desktop version: this would seem to prove that the communication is two-way. Wouldn't that mean that any transactions that already _exist_ in the cloud would get synced to my desktop version once I request it? What is the difference? Just trying to understand.

splasher .  traditionally syncing works by taking the latest version of piece of data and overwriting the earlier version wherever it may be.  Im pretty sure that this is how Quicken has it implemented as well: in the past i entered x-action on the desktop, synced it to the mobile, updated it on the mobile and then synced it again and had the desktop version take the mobile version. If I am wrong then I hope that there is still a way: at present transactions do not exist on the desktop version, only on mobile which means there is technically no conflict:  mobile version is the only version.

in any case.  ill try and will post the results.

Unknown

concentriq said:

Thank you for your time and your quick reply. I do have a follow up question though: if I _create_ a transaction on the mobile it syncs to my desktop version: this would seem to prove that the communication is two-way. Wouldn't that mean that any transactions that already _exist_ in the cloud would get synced to my desktop version once I request it? What is the difference? Just trying to understand.

splasher .  traditionally syncing works by taking the latest version of piece of data and overwriting the earlier version wherever it may be.  Im pretty sure that this is how Quicken has it implemented as well: in the past i entered x-action on the desktop, synced it to the mobile, updated it on the mobile and then synced it again and had the desktop version take the mobile version. If I am wrong then I hope that there is still a way: at present transactions do not exist on the desktop version, only on mobile which means there is technically no conflict:  mobile version is the only version.

in any case.  ill try and will post the results.

splasher

concentriq said:

Thank you for your time and your quick reply. I do have a follow up question though: if I _create_ a transaction on the mobile it syncs to my desktop version: this would seem to prove that the communication is two-way. Wouldn't that mean that any transactions that already _exist_ in the cloud would get synced to my desktop version once I request it? What is the difference? Just trying to understand.

@concentriq

Changing something in QMobile would trigger the flag I mentioned and cause something that has been synced in the past to be re-synced.

But data that has been synced in the past and has not been changed would have no reason to be synced again.

I think it would be easier to just go to the FI's websites and download the data again.

Unknown

concentriq said:

Thank you for your time and your quick reply. I do have a follow up question though: if I _create_ a transaction on the mobile it syncs to my desktop version: this would seem to prove that the communication is two-way. Wouldn't that mean that any transactions that already _exist_ in the cloud would get synced to my desktop version once I request it? What is the difference? Just trying to understand.

Of course FIs data is what ill be using for most of the lost transactions.  for some, where categories and tags were used to track spending on specific projects, that information is non recoverable.,.  that and some special cash accounts.

You do bring up an interesting point however:  if i went into QMobile and edited each transaction which I DO want to sync back to desktop (like add a underscore to a note field, or something like that).  If you are correct about the sequence of events in Quicken, such edits would mark a transaction as "updated" and "unsynced" and me syncing my 3 month old desktop copy with mobile copy would force an update.  

Unknown

concentriq said:

Thank you for your time and your quick reply. I do have a follow up question though: if I _create_ a transaction on the mobile it syncs to my desktop version: this would seem to prove that the communication is two-way. Wouldn't that mean that any transactions that already _exist_ in the cloud would get synced to my desktop version once I request it? What is the difference? Just trying to understand.

If I had a test environment id try both of these scenarios:
1. Make backup of desktop quicken file -> set it aside
2. Enter 2 transactions in quicken desktop
3. Sync to QMobile 
4. Delete Deskop version of Quicken file
5. On QMobile, edit transaction 1 (from step 2) and leave the other one alone.
6. Restore version backed up in step 1 and reopen in Quicken Desktop
7. Sync with QMobile and see which (if any at all) of the 2 transactions get back into Quicken desktop.

If someone has time to make a small experiment..  i wouldn't oppose to looking at their results ;-)

Unknown

concentriq said:

Thank you for your time and your quick reply. I do have a follow up question though: if I _create_ a transaction on the mobile it syncs to my desktop version: this would seem to prove that the communication is two-way. Wouldn't that mean that any transactions that already _exist_ in the cloud would get synced to my desktop version once I request it? What is the difference? Just trying to understand.

Just my two cents worth...and take it as that...the time you would take to change each transaction in your mobile would be greater than downloading the transactions and just fixing the category/tags.

I understand what you're attempting to do, and in a perfect world syncing from the mobile TO the desktop would accomplish what you want.

Quicken is far from perfect...and to be honest, the sync process is flawed, all the way around.  Users are still having issues with Quicken Cloud and Mobile Sync.  

I know most of the superusers, myself included, have avoided Mobile Sync like the plague.  That's not to say that it doesn't work for some...but there still are a lot of kinks to be ironed out before I would trust the validity of transactions in Quicken's Cloud. 

Unknown

concentriq said:

Thank you for your time and your quick reply. I do have a follow up question though: if I _create_ a transaction on the mobile it syncs to my desktop version: this would seem to prove that the communication is two-way. Wouldn't that mean that any transactions that already _exist_ in the cloud would get synced to my desktop version once I request it? What is the difference? Just trying to understand.

Agreed.. it's just that I can download missing cash transactions and can't recreate categories/splits for others. And that's about 100 transactions total. The rest of the missing ones are easy to download/recreate categories, etc... .