Is there a way to delete categories using a time frame?

Rick Pula

Using Quicken for so many years I developed a boatload of categories. Many are no longer needed or used and should be deleted. Wondering if there is a way quicken will perform this like the option for memorized transactions. One can set memorized transaction to delete, as an example, after 6 months. Can something like this be done in Quicken for categories?? OR must I delete them manually??

Frankx

Hi @Rick Pula,

I am curious about your reason for wanting to delete categories - i.e. what is your goal?

I would suggest that you consider the result of deleting categories - basically you will change any and all transactions that were previously recorded with those categories that you will delete, to no longer have categories.  In other words they will be transactions that haven't been categorized.  That will have a serious impact on your reporting going forward.

But to address your actual question - no, there is not a way to only delete categories using a time frame.  If you delete a category all transactions to which a category that you delete was previously assigned will no longer have a category.  However, you can hide a category (or categories) that you no longer use from the drop down list of categories that are available for transactions.  To do that simply open the "Category List" (shortcut is Ctrl+Shift+C) and click on the "Hide" box - on the right hand side of the screen for any (all) categories that you no longer want to see when you perform the categorization of transactions.

Let me know if you have any followups.

Frankx

NotACPA

Restating Frankx' message ... if you delete Category X, then Category X will be deleted in all accounts in all time frames.

Chris_QPW

I also suggest that maybe you want to reconsider how you are categorizing your transactions.
There is basically only one reason why number of categories grows to any big degree, and that is that you are given "specific ones" for events/payees.

For instance, instead of Utilities:Water you have MyHouse:Utilities:Water and then you move to another house and have MyNextHouse:Utilities:Water.

Picking categories more generic categories means you can reuse them instead of creating new ones all the time.

Rocket J Squirrel

Perhaps a better alternative is to delete unused categories.

Open the Category List. If the Usage column is not visible, make it so by selecting it in the gear menu. Then sort the list by ascending usage.

The unused categories will be at the top. Some of those will be properly unused top-level or built-in categories, which you should leave alone, but others are likely to be simply never used. You can multiple select the zero-usage categories and delete them.