Limits on the number of securities

rxmarton

I have seen a number of postings indicating that Quicken limits the number of securities to 2000. I have over 4000. They system seems to working fine. Should I try to eliminate old or unused security symbols or stick to the "If nots broke then don't fix it" philosophy?

q_lurker

I’d stick with what you have. There has always been vagueness to that limit and I don’t believe it applies to the subscription version. 

splasher

Another downside to reduction is that to remove a security from the list, you would have to delete the transactions that used that security, therefore you would be losing history.

rxmarton

thanks. I saw some securities w/o transactions Maybe they were typos. I think I'll clean those up and leave the rest alone.

Alan Adler

There is an upper limit but I don't know what it is. All I know is that I ran into it (after 25 years of stock purchases) and now the only way I can enter new symbols is through an arduous process of deleting old entries, retaining the old stock symbol (or option) and then editng it with the new symbol. A major pain. I don't know why Quicken can't handle an unlimited number of symbols. When you trade options each option is treated as a new symbol. It can add up fast.

Boatnmaniac

Here is the Support Article on limitations.: https://www.quicken.com/support/size-or-capacity-limitations-quicken-data-file/ .

Yes, it says that the number of securities is limited to 2000 but it seems this is out-of-date because you have stated that you have 4000. The article specifically states the maximum number of "trackable" securities is 2000 so what does "trackable" mean? Maybe it means currently active securities?

I do agree that deleting securities might be bad because doing that would delete historical transactions data for those securities. Then, again, deleting securities might not be buying you anything because if the article is correct once the limit has been hit it is not possible to delete any to free up "space" for new ones to be added.

If there are any securities that have not every had any transactions for them then I think it would be safe to delete those.

For other securities that have had transactions in the past but the securities are no longer active, then perhaps it might be best to simply make sure prices are not downloaded and then hide them.

q_lurker

@Alan Adler

If you go to Quicken's Help selection and ctrl-click on About Quicken, the screen will tell you how many securities it is dealing with.

That actual data would be really helpful to know.

You speak of the "only way I can enter new symbols is …". What happens that prevents the normal Add security action from behaving correctly for you? Although there is a oft-referenced 2000 limit, others have posted on this site claiming security counts 3 and 4 times that quantity. High security counts are believed to correlate with degraded program performance within investment accounts, but I do not recall anyone previously claiming they hit an absolute max limit.

Jim_Harman

Unfortunately we have never gotten an explanation of what "trackable" securities means.

Perhaps it is a limit on the number of quotes you can request.

@Alan Adler do you un-check the Download Quotes box in the Security List for expired options and other securities you no longer own? It would be interesting to know if that lets you create new securities.