Is it possible to delete or hide categories?

Question

I've used Quicken for many years (2020 Deluxe Mac 5.18) There are many categories I have to wade through - so many I don't use.  Is it possible to hide or delete categories from view?  Also, as I have decades of info is it possible to know what categories I've never used so that I can delete if possible?

Quicken Anja · Accepted Answer

Hello @CraigT,

Thank you for reaching out to the Community with your question.

You do have the ability to delete categories from the categories list. Just keep in mind that if you delete a category that is being used, it will change any transaction in your registers using that category name to uncategorized.

To access your categories list, please navigate to Window > Categories.

Unused categories will say Unused under the Status column.

Although the option to hide categories is not currently an available feature, we do have this active idea post regarding this topic instead. If you would like to see this feature be added in the future, you can go ahead and add your vote to it. Our development team frequently uses our idea posts in order to improve Quicken and implement new features requested by customers.

I hope this helps!

jacobs · Accepted Answer

@CraigT  Once you find your unused Categories, as explained by Anja above, it's quick and easy to delete them if you wish.

But deleting a Category which has been used is something to give you pause before doing. A dialog box will warn you:

If you proceed, all transactions which used the Category you delete will be changed to Uncategorized. Which usually isn't a desired outcome.

So a better option, often, is to Merge categories out of existence. If you have a category you created which is fundamentally the same as one of Quicken's default categories, you might want to merge them so only one remains -- and all existing transactions will remain categorized.

For instance, Quicken has a default Category "Food & Dining" with subcategories like "Restaurants," "Fast Food," "Alcohol and Bars," etc. From my previous version of Quicken, I have my own category of "Dining", with subcategories of "Meals Out," "Take-out Meals," "Snacks & Drinks." I could simply delete the Quicken defaults if I've never used them, but let's say I've put recent transactions into Quicken's categories but still have old ones in my old categories. I'd like to keep one and get rid of the other. How to do it is a little tricky in this case because what I want to merge are subcategories of two different categories -- and Quicken will only let you merge main categories or subcategories of the same category.

So what I'd need to to first is move my old "Dining:Meals Out" subcategory into the newer "Food & Dining Category." You do this in the Categories window by simply dragging the subcategory you want to move into the Category you want it to be in. Once the two subcategories are together under the same main Category, Command-click on each of the subcategories and you'll be able to click on the "Merge Categories" button at the very bottom of the window. A Pop-up pane will show you the two (or more) items you've selected to merge -- along with how many times each as been used -- and also which Category name will be the surviving one. Once you click Merge, Quicken will change all transactions to the surviving category and delete the other one(s).

That all took a lot of words to say, but if you do it, you'll see it's pretty quick and pretty logical -- and a good way to streamline an unwieldy list of categories.