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How to split a file. (Q Mac)

RJT

My data file extends from 2004 to 2020. QM 2015 is becoming sluggish, probably because of the number of transactions, which I guess must be over 20,000. How can I start a new file from 1/1/2018 or 2019. I would like to keep the current file for history. Would appreciate any advice on how to this.

Currently on OS10.4.6 Mojave and Quicken for MAC 2015 / 2.9.7
RJT

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Accepted answers

jacobs

@RJT This is going to sound pretty silly, but could you make sure you don't have one or more report windows open underneath the main Quicken window? If you double-click on a report in the left sidebar, it opens in its own, smaller window. It's quite easy to go back to the main Quicken window and forget that the report window is open behind it. And it will always stay there, launch after launch, unless you close it. One open report can make every transaction take seconds, because the report is refreshing.

jacobs

@RJT The quick-and-dirty way to see your number of transactions is to click All Transactions at the top of the left sidebar, and then look on the far right of the screen, under the total Net Work and the Search box, where it will show the total number of items (e.g. transactions).

Of course, there's more to your data file than just the transactions. For instance, there's a table of prices for any securities you own. You may have attached some files to transactions. You may have reports, budgets, QuickFill Rules, account settings, and all sorts of other data in your database, so there's more to the size of your data than just the number of transactions.

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jacobs

There is no capability in Quicken Mac to split a file.

In general, the SQL database in Quicken Mac is designed to contain a vast number of transactions. My file has 64,000 transactions going back in some cases to 1983, and I'm sure some folks here have more than 100,000.

They've made a number of speed enhancements since Quicken 2015, but I don't know whether it would help you appreciably or not. The time it takes for the program to launch, which was one of my gripes with Quicken 2015, was solved somewhere along the way. If I don't have lots of reports open at the same time, transaction entry is pretty instantaneous. The improved and then regressed on initial Search time, but I've learned to live with that one area of being slow. Of course, some of the performance is simply a factor of your hardware: processor speed and whether you have a spinning hard drive or a much faster SSD drive.

Back to the issue… you'd have to basically delete transactions account by account, and then make an adjustment to the opening balance entry in each account to keep your current balance unchanged. Banking accounts are pretty easy to do this with, but investment accounts are trickier because you don't want to delete any transactions which affect your current holdings or performance. so you could probably get there, but it might take some work, and a sharp eye to make sure you don't mess up any of your account balances.

There is an existing idea thread to create a "year end" process to accomplish what you want, but it has been evaluated by the developers and marked as "not on the roadmap for future implementation."

RJT

Thanks. Sounds like the number of transactions is not my problem so I will look elsewhere to solve the sluggish problem.

I also have QMAC 2016 and 2017 but did not install because of reported issues with my at that time OS. Now on Mojave. Are you aware of any current issues with Mojave and either of these versions? Do you think there may be some improvement with either of these upgrades?

jacobs

Quicken 2017 has lots of feature improvements and bug fixes over your current Quicken 2015, but I don't know how much improvement you'll see in performance. Quicken 2017 runs fine on Mojave; I still have a copy for occasional testing on my Mojave iMac, and it works fine.

Quicken 2017 still launches quite slowly on my computer, while the current Quicken Mac launches in about 6 seconds.

In what areas are you experiencing sluggishness?

RJT

When I enter a transaction, it will frequently take a couple of seconds to enter. The time is not a big issue but when you are used to, as you say, pretty instantaneous entry, I thought I might be overloading the file but It appears not. Appreciate your help.

UKR

I read another discussion about "sluggish performance on the Mac" and the suggestion was to make sure that you don't have too many windows open in Q Mac. Each open window, for each transaction you enter, needs to be updated and that takes time.

jacobs

RJT

Thanks, will check.

RJT

By the way, is there an accessible record of the number of transactions in a file?

jacobs