Year-end backup

JeanG

I've had an issue with year-end backup. Something to do with old data probably (I'm a 20 year Quicken user, and my file is still the same, reformated with newer version, but still the same). Unable to get rid of last year data in a backup, this file is geting huge and regular backups are growing in size. The solution would probably to start over. Any suggestion? :(

Rocket J Squirrel

JeanG said:

How do you feel about my 260Mb file

Is it large by your standard

It’s 20 months worth of transactions

Is that a little "b" for bits or a big "B" for bytes? I'll assume you meant MB, megabytes.

My file is 339 MB with transactions going back to the year 2010. As you can see from the above image, 216 MB of that is attachments.

So I would say your file is quite large considering it contains less than 2 years of transactions.

File size isn't that important for most Quicken operations. It certainly slows down backups, but not much else.

The Keeper

I assume you have tried File - File Operations - Year-End Copy and it hasn't worked for you. Another option is to copy your current file. If you want to copy your file from January 1, 2019, to the current date, you can do that. If you want to copy January 1, 2018, to the current date you can do that and any prior years will then not appear in your current file. (depending on how many prior years to want to copy)
This link will give you instructions

https://www.quicken.com/support/how-do-i-copy-quicken-data-file

UKR

I assume you are talking about splitting your Quicken data file in two using the Year End Copy (YEC) process.

Please tell us more about your data file. Which account registers are growing in size despite YEC? How big is your data file?
Bear in mind that unreconciled transactions are not subject to YEC removal.
Transfer transactions will only be removed from the active data file if both sides of the transfer are reconciled.
Investment transactions (Buy, Sell, etc.) are never removed because you need to retain the history.

My recommendation about YEC is to leave 4 complete years plus the current year in the active data file. That allows you to research old transactions without having to switch files. You also get better historical reports and graph views.

JeanG

Gary,
Thanks, but I know how to do it. It is just that it won't work anymore, for some reason and even if I succeeded in correcting problematic transactions, it is still not working

JeanG

Hi UKR, thanks to be so fast in helping me.
My last back-up is 368Mb. probably because I post invoice photos of most of my MasterCard account. I worry that the file growing bigger, if I follow your four year cycle, that it will come close to 1Gb at the end of the 4y period.
It is mainly my mastercard account, with anywhere between 25 to 50 transactions monthly, that helps my register to grow. My concern is really only towards backup size because the rest is working fine

UKR

I have so far refrained from attaching images to transactions, so I can't answer your underlying question whether YEC will remove attachments when removing transactions or not. Someone else will have to chip in.
From what I've read here in the Community ... it's (relatively) easy to attach images to transactions, but it's not easy to remove or otherwise work with attachments in bulk.

Rocket J Squirrel

Quicken does not make it easy to work with attachments. Not having tried it, I don't know whether Year End Copy leaves behind attachments from prior year transactions. The regular File Copy operation does have an option to not copy attachments, but it's all or nothing.

One thing to try is to look inside the QDF file. It is an "archive" which can be opened and examined (but not altered!) by a tool such as 7-Zip. When opening the archive in this way, the size of the Attach folder is visible.

You cannot determine which attachments are in the file because their names are hashed and their contents are encrypted. So the experiment to run would be to perform the YEC and compare the sizes of the Attach folders in the "before" and "after" files.

JeanG

How do you feel about my 260Mb file

Is it large by your standard

It’s 20 months worth of transactions

Rocket J Squirrel

JeanG said:

How do you feel about my 260Mb file

Is it large by your standard

It’s 20 months worth of transactions

Is that a little "b" for bits or a big "B" for bytes? I'll assume you meant MB, megabytes.

My file is 339 MB with transactions going back to the year 2010. As you can see from the above image, 216 MB of that is attachments.

So I would say your file is quite large considering it contains less than 2 years of transactions.

File size isn't that important for most Quicken operations. It certainly slows down backups, but not much else.