How is it possible that years of saved data cannot be found on hard drive? (Q Mac)

Cjadus

My Mac recently pooped out on me last week, but luckily I was able to transfer all my data from the old Mac to the new. Somehow, even though I saved my Quicken files for over 3 years on a regular bases, the backups could not be located on the Hard Drive anywhere on the old Mac. This baffles me because they were being saved, I had even accessed the quicken accounts a week prior to the crash. But where did they go? I was told by support that they could only be accessed if I can somehow get my old Mac up and running. I don't understand why - I mean the program must have been accessing the data files somewhere right? Can anyone help explain or perhaps suggest a solution?

jacobs

How did you look for the data file and/or its backup? Or how did you transfer data from the old Mac hard drive?

The reason for the question is that the default location for the Quicken data file and backup folder, unless you have moved them, is an obscure file path in the typically-hidden User Library folder. The question is whether your copy of data looked in that folder on the old Mac. The default path is 
   Users
      [your user account]
         Library
            Application Support
               Quicken
                   Documents  <-- for your live data file
                     -or-
                   Backups
                      Automatic backups   <-- for your Quicken auto-created backups

However you accessed the old hard drive to transfer the data, can you access it again to look in this location? Alternatively, do you have a Time Machine backup of the old Mac where you could look in this location?

TTSguy

A computer tech may be able to help, like if the problem was a power supply that went out, then you could replace the power supply and still use the PC with Quicken on it. So it coul depend on what caused your old PC to break also.

jacobs

How did you look for the data file and/or its backup? Or how did you transfer data from the old Mac hard drive?

The reason for the question is that the default location for the Quicken data file and backup folder, unless you have moved them, is an obscure file path in the typically-hidden User Library folder. The question is whether your copy of data looked in that folder on the old Mac. The default path is 
   Users
      [your user account]
         Library
            Application Support
               Quicken
                   Documents  <-- for your live data file
                     -or-
                   Backups
                      Automatic backups   <-- for your Quicken auto-created backups

However you accessed the old hard drive to transfer the data, can you access it again to look in this location? Alternatively, do you have a Time Machine backup of the old Mac where you could look in this location?

garysmith87

Just a note...you can have your Quicken Mac data file in ANY location you want on your Mac. I moved it from the hidden convoluted path to my Documents folder so it's easier to get to.

Once you move it, double click on the file and Quicken Mac should open the file. It will also remember the location and when the file is open you can keep the icon in the dock and just click on that.

Also, I do NOT have my Documents folder synced to iCloud Drive. Make sure you have unchecked that.

But you can always create your own Quicken data folder and just keep the data file in there. One that isn't hidden, one that isn't seven layers deep and one that isn't synced to iCloud Drive. Just makes it easier to find and use.

Cjadus

Well Great news! I was able to find my quicken backup files in the exact folder that SuperUser jacobs suggested. HOWEVER I searched in this file MANY times while my Old hard drive was plugged into my USB port of my new computer and for some reason they were not visible. I literally spent hours looking and was on the phone with Quicken support with 3 different specialist. After giving up, I decided to copy and paste my entire contents from my old hard drive into a folder in my new Mac. I then went into the folder and looked for the files in one last attempt and what do you know - they were all there! - Years of Quicken Backups. I have NO idea why they were not visible until copied the data and pasted it into the new computer. Hopefully this will help anyone having a similar issue.

jacobs

@Cjadus  So glad you were able to find the files. Apple makes the user account's Library folder hidden by default, which can make this more complicated than it should be. And Quicken has some reasons why it uses this as the default location for data files, but this is a reason why it's not an optimal solution. People can have a backup of their data yet not be able to find it.

You may want to unhide your Library folder to make it easier to get to your Quicken data file and backup files in the future. Open a Finder window and navigate to your home holder (Macintosh HD > Users > [your account name]); in the Finder select View > Show View Options, and in the dialog box, check the box next to Show Library Folder: