how to reduce the size of the data file QDF?

vanstober
vanstober Member ✭✭
I have been a Quicken Windows user for more than 15+ years. Over that time period, my QDF file has grown to 183,829 KB. I use Q for ALL my financial data including banks, credit cards and investing. I have thought about using the copy and/or year end copy functions to reduce the size of the QDF file. Experimenting with these 2 functions has produced some strange results such as not all old transactions are excluded or my net worth amount decreases which does not make any sense. I have talked with Q Support and they have been helpful but sometimes what they tell me to try does not give the desired results. I would appreciate any help or discussion about this topic.

Answers

  • splasher
    splasher SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    See this FAQ: FAQ - Year End Copy
    Do you save attachments in your Quicken file?  If so, that could explain quite a bit of your file's size and really should not have any bearing on response time in Q.

    -splasher using Q continuously since 1996
    - Subscription Quicken - Win11 and QW2013 - Win11
    -Questions? Check out the Quicken Windows FAQ list

  • vanstober
    vanstober Member ✭✭
    I do not know what an attachment is. Could you give me an example? Also I noticed that on of the options for year end backup was on/off attachments.
  • splasher
    splasher SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    Attachments are images of bills, statements or other documents that you might be attaching to transactions.  Those transactions would have a paperclip showing on the left side of the register.

    -splasher using Q continuously since 1996
    - Subscription Quicken - Win11 and QW2013 - Win11
    -Questions? Check out the Quicken Windows FAQ list

  • vanstober
    vanstober Member ✭✭
    One further thing that is confusing. If I create a year end QDF file with a date of 1-1-2018, my net worth stays the same but some of the accounts have transactions older than 1-1-2018. Why? If I manually delete an older transaction, my net worth decreases. Why? This whole thing makes no sense.
  • markus1957
    markus1957 SuperUser, Windows Beta Beta
    In Help Menu, hold Ctrl key and click About Quicken.  That will bring up a window that shows the actual size of the qdf file.  The QDF file shown in Windows is actually a container file like a zip file composed of several internal files.

    If speed is an issue there are more productive places to look, like the number transactions in an account, excessively large log files, memorized payees, categories, renaming rules.  File corruption can also degrade performance.

    https://www.quicken.com/support/quicken-performance-troubleshooting
  • splasher
    splasher SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    vanstober said:
    One further thing that is confusing. If I create a year end QDF file with a date of 1-1-2018, my net worth stays the same but some of the accounts have transactions older than 1-1-2018. Why? If I manually delete an older transaction, my net worth decreases. Why? This whole thing makes no sense.
    Your networth changes when you do the delete because you did not change the Beginning/Opening Balance of the account to compensate for the deletion.
    See this FAQ to understand how to make YEC to work correctly: FAQ - Year End Copy

    -splasher using Q continuously since 1996
    - Subscription Quicken - Win11 and QW2013 - Win11
    -Questions? Check out the Quicken Windows FAQ list

  • vanstober
    vanstober Member ✭✭
    splasher, thank you for replying to my issues. I. like you, have not used the year end copy function for the same reason, I like all the 15+ years of data in one place. Speed of performance is not an issue.
    The reason I started this whole issue is because Quicken Support thought that a part of my QDF file may be corrupted and was causing me download problems.
    One last item: I ran validate on my QDF file with no errors. I then ran Super validate on the same QDF file and a bunch on Vanguard transaction showed problems.
    I then made a copy using the copy function. Again I ran validate and Super validate against the new copy file with no problems.
    Your thoughts.
  • splasher
    splasher SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    There are lots of things going on right now that are causing issues with downloads.  Most are mentioned in the Announcement section of this forum.
    I hate to say it, but support tends to suggest file corruption and starting a new file too quickly in my opinion.  They often will tell users to start a new file every 3-4 years, so much for history.

    -splasher using Q continuously since 1996
    - Subscription Quicken - Win11 and QW2013 - Win11
    -Questions? Check out the Quicken Windows FAQ list

This discussion has been closed.