Any Way to Reduce Size of Quicken File

Paul C

I've been using Quicken for years and as a result my QDATA file is very large (~138M).  Archiving used to be a way to reduce the size of a file, but that feature isn't available in Quicken for Mac.  Any suggestions?

Alternatively, thoughts on just starting over with a clean slate (given how close we are to Jan 1). I'd keep the old QDATA file hand for historical reference.

Paul C

Sorry, Quicken 2016 (Version 3.8.3).  Considering switching to Quicken 2019.

John Burgess

I have occasionally deleted accounts that have been closed for say 10 years or more. ALWAYS do a back first. Two downsides to this. You’ll lose the value of those accounts from net value reports, and transfers to/from other accounts will be left dangling. I forget what the default behavior is for those transactions, but it isn’t too serious.



Why 10 years? Because I do like to look at the long term performance of my portfolio and if things are deleted, the report is distorted from reality. Ten years is my own limit of look-back.

Paul C

RickO said:

My QM2019 file goes back 20 years (starting from before QM2007) and is now almost 250MB. The file size doesn't cause any trouble. 

If I were you, I'd just leave it be. If you split it, you won't save any disk space because you'll still keep the old file for reference, and then you'll have to switch files every time you want to look up something earlier than 2019. That's a pain.

With the modern Quicken database (2015+), file size really doesn't affect performance, except perhaps for register searches. There was a recent update in QM2019 that really sped up searches in large registers which pretty much eliminated that issue.

Given all that, there are some things you can check/do to possibly reduce the files size:

1. Save a backup and then restore it. The backup files are compressed and there's a chance it will uncompress smaller. However, I really don't think it will change.

2. Don't store attachments in Quicken. Just keep them in a separate folder structure in the finder. There are many reasons, one of which is that they are easier to search in the finder.

3. Right click on your data file in the Finder and select Show Package Contents. You will see a file there called simply "data" with a generic icon. That is the bulk of your Quicken file and its size should be almost the whole 138MB. The only other thing there that may be very large is the Attachments folder (if you have lots of attachments). 

You may see another large file called "data" but with a date or words appended. These are old copies of your data resulting from old upgrades. There is a Quicken update a while back that was supposed to automatically delete these. But it's possible that there would be one or more hanging around inside the Quicken file structure. You can safely delete these (never the one called just "data"), but always make a safe backup of your file before doing anything inside the Contents. 

Thanks RickO.  1. I have restored from a backup recently so no change there. 2. I don't store attachments.  3. I saw the plain data file (91MB) but no other "data" files with numbers appended.  I did see a folder called "converted", which had a subfolder "1" which, in turn, contained 3 files: "Exportinfo.plist", "logfile.txt" and "SourceData" (the latter being 39.7MB in size).  The logfile was created in Sept 2016, about the time I switched from Quicken for Window over to Q for Mac.  The text of the logfile referenced exporting information from BOOTCAMP, again suggesting it was created when I converted from Q Windows over to Q Mac.  Any thoughts on whether I can delete the "converted" folder and its contents?

Paul C

RickO said:

My QM2019 file goes back 20 years (starting from before QM2007) and is now almost 250MB. The file size doesn't cause any trouble. 

If I were you, I'd just leave it be. If you split it, you won't save any disk space because you'll still keep the old file for reference, and then you'll have to switch files every time you want to look up something earlier than 2019. That's a pain.

With the modern Quicken database (2015+), file size really doesn't affect performance, except perhaps for register searches. There was a recent update in QM2019 that really sped up searches in large registers which pretty much eliminated that issue.

Given all that, there are some things you can check/do to possibly reduce the files size:

1. Save a backup and then restore it. The backup files are compressed and there's a chance it will uncompress smaller. However, I really don't think it will change.

2. Don't store attachments in Quicken. Just keep them in a separate folder structure in the finder. There are many reasons, one of which is that they are easier to search in the finder.

3. Right click on your data file in the Finder and select Show Package Contents. You will see a file there called simply "data" with a generic icon. That is the bulk of your Quicken file and its size should be almost the whole 138MB. The only other thing there that may be very large is the Attachments folder (if you have lots of attachments). 

You may see another large file called "data" but with a date or words appended. These are old copies of your data resulting from old upgrades. There is a Quicken update a while back that was supposed to automatically delete these. But it's possible that there would be one or more hanging around inside the Quicken file structure. You can safely delete these (never the one called just "data"), but always make a safe backup of your file before doing anything inside the Contents. 

After making a backup, I deleted the contents of the "converted" file.  When I relaunched Quicken, many of the account balances were different.  Didn't have the energy to try and figure out why there were differences and just restored from the backup.  Guess the "converted" folder is going to be staying around.

Paul C

RickO said:

My QM2019 file goes back 20 years (starting from before QM2007) and is now almost 250MB. The file size doesn't cause any trouble. 

If I were you, I'd just leave it be. If you split it, you won't save any disk space because you'll still keep the old file for reference, and then you'll have to switch files every time you want to look up something earlier than 2019. That's a pain.

With the modern Quicken database (2015+), file size really doesn't affect performance, except perhaps for register searches. There was a recent update in QM2019 that really sped up searches in large registers which pretty much eliminated that issue.

Given all that, there are some things you can check/do to possibly reduce the files size:

1. Save a backup and then restore it. The backup files are compressed and there's a chance it will uncompress smaller. However, I really don't think it will change.

2. Don't store attachments in Quicken. Just keep them in a separate folder structure in the finder. There are many reasons, one of which is that they are easier to search in the finder.

3. Right click on your data file in the Finder and select Show Package Contents. You will see a file there called simply "data" with a generic icon. That is the bulk of your Quicken file and its size should be almost the whole 138MB. The only other thing there that may be very large is the Attachments folder (if you have lots of attachments). 

You may see another large file called "data" but with a date or words appended. These are old copies of your data resulting from old upgrades. There is a Quicken update a while back that was supposed to automatically delete these. But it's possible that there would be one or more hanging around inside the Quicken file structure. You can safely delete these (never the one called just "data"), but always make a safe backup of your file before doing anything inside the Contents. 

I was surprised too.  For the heck of it, I tried it again using a different method.  Rather than working with a copy file on my desktop, I exported a copy to my laptop, deleted the contents of the "converted" folder and opened it on my laptop.  The net worth and account balances shown on my laptop and my desktop matched exactly.  I checked several accounts I know had large activity pre the 2016 export and all the historical transaction looked to be there.

Not sure what was different when I tried (and failed) the first time, but deleting the contents of the "converted" file does not seem to do any harm to the data and reduced the size of my QDATA file by 40MB.  

Thanks.