Trouble backing up my Quicken Data.
I am having trouble backing up my Quicken Data both to Dropbox and a thumb drive. Most of the time I receive an error message: Unable to open source file. Then: Quicken cannot open data file because it is in use by some other application. Please close that application and try again. Then: Unable to re-load file after copy. If I close and reopen Quicken it works ok but will do the same if I try to back up the data again.
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When you start a
manual backup process from within Quicken, one of the first things that happens
is: Quicken closes the data file to ensure that all updates have been written.
A split second later it opens the file again to start the Backup process.
A third party cloud
backup product like Dropbox, Carbonite, One Drive, etc. or a NAS backup server
will use that "file close" command as the trigger to start its own
backup process ... and that gets in the way of Quicken trying to reopen the file
for backup ... error "file in use" ...
If you are using any
of these cloud backup products you need to configure them so as NOT to backup
your current Quicken data file. Make it use either the Automatic Backup file or
the Manual Backup file.
Using Carbonite, OneDrive, Dropbox, etc. as the Backup
process
(For this
discussion, Carbonite is assumed to be the backup product in effect. Replace
"Carbonite" with the name of your backup tool.
It is also assumed that your Quicken data file is stored in the default (and
recommended) location
C:\Users\_your_username_here_\Documents\Quicken)
IMHO, you should
keep Carbonite (or any other third party backup product which you use) away
from your live Quicken data file. It will interfere with some Quicken
operations, especially Manual Backup.
Instead, configure
Carbonite to backup either of these files:
- The backup file created by Quicken Automatic Backup
Or
- The backup file created by Quicken Manual Backup as you close Quicken.
Backup settings in
Quicken are stored in Edit / Preferences / Backup.
If you choose the
Automatic Backup file as Carbonite candidate (or even if you don't), activate
this process and set it to execute every "1" times Quicken closes.
The Automatic Backup file always goes to a \Backup folder that's part of the
folder which contains your current Quicken data file, usually
\Documents\Quicken\Backup
If you choose the
Manual Backup file as Carbonite candidate, create a separate
\Quicken\Carbonite_Backup folder and direct the Manual Backups to go there
every "1" times Quicken closes. Select the "Add date stamp to
file name option" so you get multiple backups and not just one that is
overwritten every time.
For a belts and
suspenders approach:
Automatic Backups go
to Carbonite, Manual Backups go to a USB stick or external hard drive.
One can never have
enough backups of your Quicken data file. BTDTGTS!
This does not seem to be working for me. The settings on Quicken seem to be accurate, But I need to keep Google Drive and One Drive from trying to copy the Quicken files when I try to Backup. How do I make those changes?
An alternative is to pause Google Drive or to pause syncing OneDrive and then resume or resume syncing after completing the Quicken backup. The options are available off of their respective toolbar icons.
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