After import to Mac version can't used categories that were hidden in Windows version

zurubi

I imported my Windows file and I've been using it for about a week. In the Windows version I had a bunch of hidden categories that were imported fine (they show up in the categories windows in the Mac version). However, when I try to use them, Quicken doesn't recognize them and asks me to create a new one. This happens with all the categories that were hidden before in the Win version. Could that be the reason?

jacobs

Quicken Mac doesn't (yet) have hidden categories; it's an often requested feature which the developers haven't yet implemented.

I don't know how the import of hidden Window categories is handled by Quicken Mac. I agree it seems odd that you can see them in the Categories window yet can't use them. It seems possible that Quicken Mac already has code for not showing categories flagged as hidden in transactions, but the developers haven't yet added a user interface in the categories window to hide and unhide categories.

Make a copy of your data file before trying the following test...

Let's say you have a category called "ABC" which was hidden in Quicken Windows.
Create a new category in Quicken Mac called "ABC-New".
In the category window, click on "ABC" and Command-click on "ABC-New" so they are both highlighted.
At the bottom of the window, click the Merge Categories button
In the Merge panel, at the bottom, set Into to "ABC-New"
Click Merge. This merges your old Windows category into the new category created in Quicken Mac.
Rename "ABC-New" back to "ABC" by double-clicking on the category and editing the name.
Now try to create a transaction and see if it lets you use the category ABC.

If that works, it gives you a path forward for any of your old hidden Windows categories by merging them into a newly-created Mac category. Yes, it would be a pain if you had to do this a lot if you have a lot of such old Windows categories. However, if you had them hidden in Windows, I'd guess you don't need them all, so you only need to do this initially for any categories you want to "unhide" to use.

The other alternative is probably less palatable: go back to your Windows computer (if you still have it), unhide these hidden categories, and re-import your data file to Quicken Mac. You'll lose the work you've done in the past week by starting over, but if it wouldn't take too long to re-do that work, that might be an easier option.

zurubi

> @jacobs said:
> Quicken Mac doesn't (yet) have hidden categories; it's an often requested feature which the developers haven't yet implemented.
>
> I don't know how the import of hidden Window categories is handled by Quicken Mac. I agree it seems odd that you can see them in the Categories window yet can't use them. It seems possible that Quicken Mac already has code for not showing categories flagged as hidden in transactions, but the developers haven't yet added a user interface in the categories window to hide and unhide categories.
>
> Make a copy of your data file before trying the following test...
>
> Let's say you have a category called "ABC" which was hidden in Quicken Windows.
> Create a new category in Quicken Mac called "ABC-New".
> In the category window, click on "ABC" and Command-click on "ABC-New" so they are both highlighted.
> At the bottom of the window, click the Merge Categories button
> In the Merge panel, at the bottom, set Into to "ABC-New"
> Click Merge. This merges your old Windows category into the new category created in Quicken Mac.
> Rename "ABC-New" back to "ABC" by double-clicking on the category and editing the name.
> Now try to create a transaction and see if it lets you use the category ABC.
>
> If that works, it gives you a path forward for any of your old hidden Windows categories by merging them into a newly-created Mac category. Yes, it would be a pain if you had to do this a lot if you have a lot of such old Windows categories. However, if you had them hidden in Windows, I'd guess you don't need them all, so you only need to do this initially for any categories you want to "unhide" to use.
>

@jacobs: thanks for the suggestions. Tried the merge option and Quicken doesn't let me merge those (formerly hidden) categories with new ones.

Your other solution is now not a solution since I've been using this new Mac version for a few weeks, so this will be more painful.

I guess the only thing I can do is create new categories for future expenses that have the same flavor as the hidden ones I had in Windows. The reason for having hidden categories in quicken was to hide them from different views (usually things that were not "real").

Are the developers reading these forums? If you are, please fix this!

jacobs

No the developers don't read these forums. However, you can use the Help > Report a Problem feature in Quicken to document this problem. you won't receive any reply from Quicken to such submissions, but if they can replicate the problem being reported, it gets entered into their bug database to be fixed. In your submission, try to be as succinct as possible in stating how to replicate the problem.

In your case, it would be to start with a Quicken Windows file which has some categories marked as hidden, then import into Quicken Mac and observe that these categories appear like normal Quicken Mac categories but can't be merged into existing Mac categories and can't be used in transactions -- as if Quicken Mac knows they are hidden categories, even though Quicken Mac doesn't yet have a hidden categories feature. The fix needed is to either allow users to set categories to hidden/unhidden, or to ignore the hidden flag if that is indeed what is imported from Quicken windows.