Why do I have a Cloud account, and why can it not be disabled?

Andrew B

I have never / will never store anything in Quicken's cloud. The only account connections I have set up are through Direct Connect. Now, this afternoon, I go to sync, and it gives me a pile of QuickFill Rule Sync Errors.
A bit of digging reveals that this has something to do with my "Cloud Account."
I don't want a Cloud Account. In fact, I insist that it be removed. The way to clear these sync errors is to "Reset" my Cloud Account, which says that it will upload a fresh copy of all of my data to Quicken's servers. Obviously I'm not doing that.

Who designed this product? Why can I not disable this feature?

Quicken Anja

Hello @Andrew B,

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

You can delete the cloud account by following the instructions provided below.

1. Navigate to the Quicken dropdown menu
2. Preferences
3. Mobile, Sync & Alerts and turn sync Off
4. Close Preferences
   
5. Open a different data file, or if you don't have a second data file to open, then create a temporary new data file (click here to view instructions under To create a new data file).
6. Once you've opened a different data file, navigate back to Quicken
7. Preferences
8. Connected Services
9. Click on See all cloud accounts 
10. Select the cloud account name from your original file
11. Click the minus-sign (-) in the bottom left corner
12. On the pop-up screen, click Delete Cloud Account
13. Switch back to your original data file (click here to view instructions, scroll down to Switching between data files)

Once you've returned to your original data file, you can then also delete the new file you previously created as well as its cloud account (if applicable). Keep Sync turned Off to avoid data from being synced and saved to the cloud going forward.

I hope this helps!

jacobs

@Andrew B What did you mean when you said that you "go to sync". Are you referring to the Sync feature in Quicken which is used for the mobile app and web interface?  Or were you referring to updating your account transaction downloads? 

For what it's worth, every Quicken Mac file generates a cloud account. (In the steps Anja outlined above, when you create a temporary new file, that will generate a cloud account of its own.) But a cloud account does not mean that your data is stored in Quicken's Cloud servers! As long as you don't go to Preferences > Mobile, Web & Alerts and turn on Sync, none of your transaction or password data is stored in Quicken Cloud. The cloud account in these circumstances is just a unique identifier for each Quicken data file you may have. For instance, if you use the Report a Problem feature, the cloud account for your data file contains some identifier information (such as the version you're running and operating system, I believe) which can help the developers when evaluating your problem report. 

I hope that helps your understanding of Quicken and cloud accounts. 

Andrew B

Thank you for your prompt response. I have done what you suggested, but now it is refusing to update my Direct Connect accounts ("Cloud account not found"). Please advise.

Andrew B

The failure to sync a renaming rule - despite Sync being disabled - would seem to disprove your assertion about whether my data is on Quicken's servers.

Andrew B

For some reason I'm not able to comment on my own post.

Andrew B

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jacobs

Yes, I wasn't sure, but I'm not surprised that downloads won't work with a Quicken file that has no associated cloud account. As I said, to my knowledge, every Quicken data file has a cloud file associated with it to coordinate various online activities. I can't explain the inner workings of it all because I've never seen it all explained -- but my understanding is that the cloud account does facilitate certain activities. Basic renaming rules for downloaded transactions happen on Quicken's server, which uses anonymized crowd-sourced data to know that, for instance, "VZW" should be renamed "Verizon Wireless", although you can turn this off by disabling the Preferences > Connected Services setting to "Automatically improve the quality of payee names and categories". The thing to understand that a cloud account does not contain your transactions and passwords unless you turn on Sync, which allows you to get your data in the mobile app or web interface. Resetting a cloud account simply blows away the file and creates a new one to be associated with your desktop data file -- but again, will not upload your private data unless you have Sync turned on.

Andrew B

Thank you for your response. I think we're talking in slightly different terms here. I do consider the list of every Exxon station I've visited in the last 20 years - contained in the renaming rule - to be my private data, and I've unchecked the box that does the "Automatic improvement." It boggles the mind that Quicken is still uploading my renaming rules even though I have expressly told it not to.

jacobs

I pretty confident Quicken does not upload your local renaming rules -- unless you have Sync enabled. I was discussing its automatic, background, server based roaming rules.