Is there a way in the 2020 Mac version to do something like Q2007 "save a copy"?

hbanks

Hi,

Is there any way to delete prior cleared transactions, and make a new file for the new year?

I noticed that in the Windows version, you can do the "save a copy" thing under File -> File Operations. Hope there is a way.

Thanks in advance

smayer97

Unfortunately, there is not. You would have to try to do this manually, which is not simple.

Meanwhile, you can add your VOTE to Add "Save a Copy" feature (similar to "Year End Copy").

First, click on the underlined link above to go there, then click the little grey triangle under the VOTE count at the top of page 1 in the blue banner, so your vote will count for THIS feature and increase its visibility to the developers by seeking to have the features you need or desire end up in the latest version (it may take a moment for your vote to register).

Your VOTES matter!

smayer97

Unfortunately, there is not. You would have to try to do this manually, which is not simple.

Meanwhile, you can add your VOTE to Add "Save a Copy" feature (similar to "Year End Copy").

First, click on the underlined link above to go there, then click the little grey triangle under the VOTE count at the top of page 1 in the blue banner, so your vote will count for THIS feature and increase its visibility to the developers by seeking to have the features you need or desire end up in the latest version (it may take a moment for your vote to register).

Your VOTES matter!

jacobs

@hbanks What problems are you encountering with the lack of this feature? There might be ways to work around some things even though this feature doesn't currently exist.

hbanks

Thanks. Hope it comes through, eventually. Not having any problems, just want to be able to make individual files for each year, while carrying over uncleared transactions.

hbanks

Running both 2007 and 2020, in anticipation of getting the 2020 kinks ironed out., btw.

smayer97

But why do you want to create separate files for each year? This would make it more difficult to perform any year to year comparisons, or look up past data. There is little performance impact unless your data file becomes really large, e.g. hundreds and hundreds of MBs.

hbanks

No good reason; just the way I've always done it.

jacobs

hbanks said:

No good reason; just the way I've always done it.

@hbanks I'd definitely encourage you to rethink your approach, then. By creating separate annual files, you are working uphill against much of the functionality Quicken offers. As @smayer97 notes, separate annual files prevents you from running comparison reports, and finding older transactions can require hunting through multiple old files.

Additionally, every time there is an update to Quicken's database format, it is imperative that you open and update all your prior year files. The reason is that Quicken doesn't indefinitely support opening old data files. There was a user who posted in this forum in the past several days about needing to find some data in old annual Quicken files and finding that they can't be read by the current version of Quicken; that user faces a daunting task of finding an old Mac and old version of the software as a bridge to the current Quicken Mac, or never being able to access his old data. We see users in this unfortunate situation on a recurring basis on this forum.

In older versions of Quicken, both Windows and Mac, the databases could become slow when they got large, develop data corruption, or flat-out run out of space for transactions, and those issues forced the developers to create ways to save copies with more limited data. The modern Quicken Mac doesn't have the Save A Copy feature (at least so far) because the modern database doesn't have the limitations that the older generations did. Database technology has advanced a great deal since the early days of Mac OS and Windows, and Quicken Mac uses the same SQL database that powers many parts of the modern Mac (and Windows) operating system, and many other applications. Quicken Mac was designed to have data filters pretty much everywhere in registers in reports, to make it easy to only see current (or past) year data when you don't want to see everything.

Of course, it's still a good idea to manually save a copy (in the Finder) from time to time, so you have multiple layers of backups should something go wrong in the future. So unless it's causing you some specific problem to have your prior year data in your data file, I'd recommend you just use Quicken the way it was designed to keep your entire history in one place.

hbanks

Thanks. All good reasons to change my ways.