Opening and Closing Quicken Is VERY Slow (Q Mac)

nksmith

I have about 10 years worth of data in Quicken for Mac, and it has gradually taken longer and longer to open and close the application. I am running on a 3-year old Macbook and it take Quicken over a minute to open or close.

Is there a way to speed this up or archive some data easily?

jacobs

nksmith said:

The file is local, like DropBox.

But DropBox isn't local, it's in the Cloud, and this results in a variety of problems -- including bloated file sizes -- when people intentionally or accidentally put their live data file on DropBox.

I'm not familiar with Synology Drive, but since it's apparently a similar cloud-based storage system, I'd say there's a >95% chance that's the cause of your problem (By comparison, my data file has more than twice as many transactions, and is about 60 MB in size; yours should be smaller, but something has bloated it to 100 times as large as it should be.)

I would copy/download your data file from Synology Drive to somewhere on your Mac that it won't; be immediately copied back to Synology Drive. This might be putting it back in Quicken's default location (in your User/Library/Application Support folder) or in a folder you create at the root level of your home folder (e.g. the same level as Desktop, Documents, Music, Pictures, etc.). Once the file is there, double-click it to launch Quicken. I would then try to Save a Backup to the same location, select Restore from a Backup, and let Quicken create a new data file from the backup. Quit Quicken to see if you have a vastly downsized file.

nksmith

Thanks for your help. I guess using any service that syncs to the cloud will screw up the main file. I ended up exporting all of my transactions, importing them into a new file, reconnecting all my banks, and rebuilding my reports. It wasn't as much work as I thought, and now my file is 60MB. I left my main Quicken file in the default location and now only backup to the cloud.

There really should be some warning about this in the software when you set up your file.

jacobs

There isn't a way to archive data in Quicken Mac. But it really shouldn't be taking that long to open your data file. I have nearly 30 years worth of data, and Quicken launches and opens my data file in about 7 seconds. That's on a 2 year-old iMac, but it's not much longer on my 4 year-old MacBook Pro.

A few questions which might help us explore this...

1. What version of macOS are you running?
2. What version of Quicken Mac are you running?
3. Click All Transactions in the left sidebar; on the right side under the search box, how many transactions (items) does it show in your file? 
4. How large is your data file in MB or GB?
5. Do you store file attachments (receipts, statements, bills) in Quicken?
6. Is your Quicken data file stored on your local hard drive (as opposed to on DropBox or iCloud)? Where is its location?

nksmith

MacOS: Big Sur 11.6
Quicken Version: 6.4.4
Transaction Count: 15,735
File Size: 5.4 GB
Store File Attachments: No
Data File Location: Synology Drive, version 3.0.1

Jon

Something's really off there. I have around 40K transactions in my file & it's only 35MB, your file is over 100x that size. That's probably the main reason it takes so long to open, especially if you have file encryption turned on. The Synology might also be a factor if you're connecting to it over a network connection.

nksmith

Do you know how to reduce the file size? It's not connecting over a network, the file is local, like DropBox.

jacobs

nksmith said:

The file is local, like DropBox.

But DropBox isn't local, it's in the Cloud, and this results in a variety of problems -- including bloated file sizes -- when people intentionally or accidentally put their live data file on DropBox.

I'm not familiar with Synology Drive, but since it's apparently a similar cloud-based storage system, I'd say there's a >95% chance that's the cause of your problem (By comparison, my data file has more than twice as many transactions, and is about 60 MB in size; yours should be smaller, but something has bloated it to 100 times as large as it should be.)

I would copy/download your data file from Synology Drive to somewhere on your Mac that it won't; be immediately copied back to Synology Drive. This might be putting it back in Quicken's default location (in your User/Library/Application Support folder) or in a folder you create at the root level of your home folder (e.g. the same level as Desktop, Documents, Music, Pictures, etc.). Once the file is there, double-click it to launch Quicken. I would then try to Save a Backup to the same location, select Restore from a Backup, and let Quicken create a new data file from the backup. Quit Quicken to see if you have a vastly downsized file.

Jon

Synology sells Network Attached Storage devices. They are boxes that sit on your home network which you can access from multiple computers. Some NAS vendors also provide a way to access your NAS when you're away from home, similar to a cloud service, but I can't tell from a quick look whether Synology devices offer that or not. But either way Quicken might have some of the same issues with this as it does with cloud storage, since it's still reading & writing over ethernet or wifi.

nksmith

Thanks for your help. I guess using any service that syncs to the cloud will screw up the main file. I ended up exporting all of my transactions, importing them into a new file, reconnecting all my banks, and rebuilding my reports. It wasn't as much work as I thought, and now my file is 60MB. I left my main Quicken file in the default location and now only backup to the cloud.

There really should be some warning about this in the software when you set up your file.