Auto-Removal of Backup Files [edited]

Ron

Add an auto deletion of backups to Quicken 2018 for Windows and potentially Quicken for Mac.
This change will take only a few hours of coding (a day at most).
I know this since I have created the same code for multiple applications at work.

To implement this, you would need to add two parameters to Quicken 2018 preferences.

The first parameter is the number of days before a backup gets automatically deleted.
If this parameter is supplied by the user, the Quicken backup process would simply subtract the number of days supplied by the user from the current date (simply multiply the days supplied by -1 and then use the .NET DateTime AddDays method to arrive at the deletion cutoff date.

If the number of days is the only new parameter supplied, Quicken would do the backup requested by the user and then the new Auto-Deletion feature would be invoked resulting in any backup created within the backup folder created prior to the the calculated cutoff date would be deleted.

The second parameter would be the number of backup copies to be retained before the a backup is deleted.

If the user supplies this parameter. the Quicken backup process would simply check the number of backup files within the backup directory (suggest developer use .NET DirectoryInfo class).
If the number of backup files within the backup folder is greater than the number supplied by the user, Quicken will only retain the newest n number of backup files where n is replaced by the number of backups to be retained (specified by the user within the second new parameter).

If the user supplies both parameters then both sets of logic would be applied in an "and" fashion.

In other words, if the user says to retain backups for 30 days and the minimum number of backups is 10, Quicken would retain a minimum of 10 backups and only delete backups that are older than 30 days. 

I backup Quicken every day.  It is annoying to have to go to my backup directory and manually delete old backup files when the amount of code to accomplish this automatically within Quicken is trivial.

RickO

QMac already has the ability to limit the number of backups retained:

Ron

Quicken 2018 for Windows has the same parameter but Quicken for Windows totally ignores the parameter if I press Ctrl-B to do a backup to a folder other than the default location.
I backup of Quicken every day to to a folder on my wife's PC (Quicken is running on my PC).
I just had to delete 183 backup files within the date range of April 2017 and November 2017 inclusive.

Quicken needs to also add a number of days retention parameter in addition to the existing number of files to retain and and they need to use them in conjunction with each other.

They also need to apply these parameters for user invoked backups (Ctrl+B).
It appears Quicken might only be using number of files parameter for automatic backups.

Bob_L

Windows automatic backups can be limited as well. Presumably the OP is referring to manual backups, though not clear to me as to why that distinction makes a difference?

DHClem

Good discussion. May I add my trivial-but-nice-to-have enhancement requests?
1. On other forums, but bears repeating. Allow us the very first time ads come up (20128 QK Mac! 40%) to cancel them forever. That one is still annoying me.
2. And one more thing on that--you could improve how you handle multiple dialogue boxes--#1 is just one instance of QK getting "stuck" because of a box that must be addressed first being obliterated by one that come up second.
3. Simple, but better in 2007--Put a "p" in check number--autofill to "print".
4. Let me choose, in preferences, what set of split processes I want operational!

Jim_Harman

Back to the subject of backups, my process is to let QWin create an automatic backup every time I run, with a maximum of 5, and a manual backup to a separate drive with a reminder every time I exit.  On the manual backups, I do not include the date in the file name, so only the most recent one is retained.

The settings for this are in Edit/Preferences/Backup.

The original file plus both the manual and the automatic backups are automatically backed up online by Mozy, so I also have cloud copies of them.

This combination has never let me down (yet!)

Unknown

How about never to be asked if I want to connect to the cloud.  I don't.  I'd rather have my own backup that I can rely on, instead of worrying the site will be hacked.

Bob_L

Jim Harman said:

Back to the subject of backups, my process is to let QWin create an automatic backup every time I run, with a maximum of 5, and a manual backup to a separate drive with a reminder every time I exit.  On the manual backups, I do not include the date in the file name, so only the most recent one is retained.

The settings for this are in Edit/Preferences/Backup.

The original file plus both the manual and the automatic backups are automatically backed up online by Mozy, so I also have cloud copies of them.

This combination has never let me down (yet!)

Jim,

As I recall, many years back there was an issue that corrupted files. The solution was to restore a file created before date x. Perhaps your mozy guards against this? If not then date named files are good to have. I keep mine around for about a month to be safe.

Jim_Harman

Jim Harman said:

Back to the subject of backups, my process is to let QWin create an automatic backup every time I run, with a maximum of 5, and a manual backup to a separate drive with a reminder every time I exit.  On the manual backups, I do not include the date in the file name, so only the most recent one is retained.

The settings for this are in Edit/Preferences/Backup.

The original file plus both the manual and the automatic backups are automatically backed up online by Mozy, so I also have cloud copies of them.

This combination has never let me down (yet!)

Yes I checked and the current version of MozyHome keeps daily backups for 31 days and weeklies for 92 days. You just set the "as-of" date for the restore.

If you want Mozy to back up Quicken's automatic backups, you do have to define the backup set so it includes the Quicken\BACKUP directory because it does not automatically pick up the QDF-backup extension as an important file to back up.  

Ron

Bob L said:

Windows automatic backups can be limited as well. Presumably the OP is referring to manual backups, though not clear to me as to why that distinction makes a difference?

You are correct, I was referring to manual backups using CTRL+B.  That is the only backup I use.

Quicken runs on my PC but the Quicken data files are being backed up to my wife's PC (across my LAN).

The existing parameter appears to have no effect on manual backups.
Also, the number of days parameter currently does not exist within Quicken.

I don't see any reason to limit the new parameters usage to manual backups.
The user should be able to apply the new parameters to both manual and automatic backups.