Doing a partial restore of Quicken Mac data?

bates-d

I’m using the latest version of Quicken for Mac. I have an account that needs to have some data restored from a Quicken backup. However, I have to go back quite a few days to get the correct information for this account. In the meantime, I’ve changed quite a bit of data in all of my other accounts, so I don’t want to just do a full restore. What’s the best way to go back a few days in Quicken and only restore the data for one account?

Quicken Jasmine

Hi @bates-d,

Thank you for reaching out to the community with this question!

Unfortunately, there is not a way to be able to restore only a specific part of a backup as it will restore from the entire file and use the entire file every time. 

However, you could try and import the information from the said account into a new data file. 

Please let us know if you require any more assistance!

Thank you,
Quicken Jasmine

jacobs

@bates-d  @Quicken Jasmine Actually, there is a way, but it's a bit messy — if this is a banking account. I don't believe this technique will work for investment accounts (but you could try it to see if that's the account you're trying to fix.) If you're only missing a few days of transactions, it might be easier/faster to just enter them manually. But if you want, here's how to do it…

Note: Please make a backup of your current data file before attempting this in case anything goes wrong!

• Restore your backup data file
• When Quicken asks where to put the restored file, give it a different name like "TEMP Restored File" so you don't get confused; you can direct Quicken to put this on your Desktop
• For the account you want to restore, click Settings and disconnect it from downloading
• Rename the account something different, like "Restored XYZ account"
• Delete every account except the one you're interested in
• In that account, select and delete transactions prior to the date you're interested in

So now you have a Quicken data file with only one account, and that account has only the recent transactions you want to restore. 

• Select File > Export > Quicken Transfer File (QXF)
• Re-open your current Quicken data file from File > Open Recent. (Make sure when it opens that you're in the correct file!)
• Go to File > Import > Quicken Windows File (QDF, QXF)
• Select the QXF file you exported above

This will import the transactions from the "Restored XYZ account" you wanted.

• Click on the "Restored XYZ account" in the left sidebar
• Click on any transaction and press Command-A to select all the transactions
• Click and drag on any of the highlighted transactions over to the real account in the left sidebar, transferring all the restored transactions into your real account and leaving "Restored XYZ account" empty
• Control-click on "Restored XYZ account" in the left sidebar and select Delete to remove them now-empty account
• Make sure you don't have any duplicate transactions in the live account, and that the balance is correct
• Delete the "TEMP Restored File" on your Desktop

Note that if any of the restored transactions was a Transfer to or from another account, the transfer will be broken and you will have to fix the transfer manually.

Good luck!

bates-d

Hi @jacobs

Many thanks!

I’ll give your suggestion a try. Seems clever, and I think this technique will be helpful for a lot of the edge cases that I find with Quicken. This all-or-nothing approach to data restore in Quicken is flawed, at best.

I guess that it goes without saying that a more granular approach to data restore should be a feature of Quicken going forward.

Thank goodness for our fellow Quicken users. I was, of course, disappointed with the quality of the official reply. It’s not the first time.

> @jacobs said:
> @bates-d  @Quicken Jasmine Actually, there is a way, but it's a bit messy — if this is a banking account. I don't believe this technique will work for investment accounts (but you could try it to see if that's the account you're trying to fix.) If you're only missing a few days of transactions, it might be easier/faster to just enter them manually. But if you want, here's how to do it…
>
> Note: Please make a backup of your current data file before attempting this in case anything goes wrong!* Restore your backup data file
> * When Quicken asks where to put the restored file, give it a different name like "TEMP Restored File" so you don't get confused; you can direct Quicken to put this on your Desktop
> * For the account you want to restore, click Settings and disconnect it from downloading
> * Rename the account something different, like "Restored XYZ account"
> * Delete every account except the one you're interested in
> * In that account, select and delete transactions prior to the date you're interested in
>
> So now you have a Quicken data file with only one account, and that account has only the recent transactions you want to restore. * Select File > Export > Quicken Transfer File (QXF)
> * Re-open your current Quicken data file from File > Open Recent. (Make sure when it opens that you're in the correct file!)
> * Go to File > Import > Quicken Windows File (QDF, QXF)
> * Select the QXF file you exported above
>
> This will import the transactions from the "Restored XYZ account" you wanted.* Click on the "Restored XYZ account" in the left sidebar
> * Click on any transaction and press Command-A to select all the transactions
> * Click and drag on any of the highlighted transactions over to the real account in the left sidebar, transferring all the restored transactions into your real account and leaving "Restored XYZ account" empty
> * Control-click on "Restored XYZ account" in the left sidebar and select Delete to remove them now-empty account
> * Make sure you don't have any duplicate transactions in the live account, and that the balance is correct
> * Delete the "TEMP Restored File" on your Desktop
>
> Note that if any of the restored transactions was a Transfer to or from another account, the transfer will be broken and you will have to fix the transfer manually.
>
> Good luck!

Quicken Jasmine

Hi @jacobs,

Thank you for responding to this discussion and for your immense contributions to the community! 
I had not thought of it this way as it is normally associated with regular accounts and not investments! However, I hope that @bates-d finds this useful and it helps with his issue.

Again, thank you
Quicken Jasmine

jacobs

bates-d said:

Seems clever, and I think this technique will be helpful for a lot of the edge cases that I find with Quicken. This all-or-nothing approach to data restore in Quicken is flawed, at best.

"A lot…"?: Well, hopefully this isn't something you need to do very often! Quicken Mac does not have a feature for this because it's not something that comes up frequently — but yes, I agree it would be useful for the developers to build a way to export/import selectively by accounts and/or date range. With all the needs for Quicken Mac, though, I would expect this is pretty low on the priority list.

bates-d

> @jacobs said:
> "A lot…"?: Well, hopefully this isn't something you need to do very often! Quicken Mac does not have a feature for this because it's not something that comes up frequently — but yes, I agree it would be useful for the developers to build a way to export/import selectively by accounts and/or date range. With all the needs for Quicken Mac, though, I would expect this is pretty low on the priority list.

I would argue the opposite. Since this is our financial data that we’re talking about, and since Quicken has a history of problems with banks’ back end systems (see the current Schwab problems), and since many of these problems can be subtle and insidious, and since they can take many, many hours to diagnose and fix, and since they can crop up months after they occur (after many other changes have been made to all of your other accounts), I’d argue that Quicken ought to put a higher priority on granular data recovery. What good is backing up if the recovery is impractical? Or too confusing? This “nuke and pave” style of data recovery isn’t going to work in all cases, and then what? Start over? Spend months trying to reconcile your accounts? There aren’t many good choices here.

I understand that everyone’s priorities for Quicken features will be a little different, but once you’ve dealt with subtle data corruption, then ‘better data recovery’ will zoom to the top of your list.