How do I create a year end copy to remove and store past years and have a smaller file to work with?

Kentucky Kay

When I click on File--> Save A Backup -->
I don't get any advanced options.

Quicken Anja

Hello @Kentucky Kay,

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

Quicken for Mac, unfortunately, does not currently offer the ability to create Year-End Copies. 

Therefore, I'd like to refer you to this active Idea post regarding this topic instead which is currently marked as Under Consideration. If you would like to see this feature be added in the future, you can go ahead and add your vote by clicking the up arrow underneath the vote count (see example below) as well as a comment explaining how this idea would be beneficial for you.



Our Development and Product teams frequently use our idea posts in order to improve Quicken and implement new features requested by customers. 

I hope this helps!

jacobs

@Kentucky Kay If your main reason for wanting to do this is to have a smaller file, I'll note that file size is really not an issue. I have 28 years of data in my Quicken file, and a number of folks here on the forum have two to three decades of data in their file. Unlike Quicken Windows and the old Quicken for Mac, the modern database powering today's Quicken Mac is capable of handling immense amounts of data without much speed degradation or instability. 

The only time where file size becomes an issue is if you store a large number of file attachments in Quicken. This won't affect Quicken's performance overall, but it will take longer each time you quit and Quicken generates a backup file. But very few Quicken users have a large number of attachments creating a huge data file.

Kentucky Kay

@jacobs I have about 15 accounts on my business quicken file. I struggle with my quicken getting slow on my largest account on it which goes back to 2004. The smaller accounts are not slow. By slow I mean it takes a long time to process transactions or to find something by typing in the search. I do not use quicken online, nor do I attach files. I only split out transactions. I technically use it as a checkbook and take advantage of some of the reports that are available. But not a lot of them even. I have had the Quicken team try to help me speed it up, but it is getting slower again. Thought getting rid of some of the baggage might help with that. It gets so slow that I often do other tasks while it is processing.

jacobs

Hmmm… 15 accounts and transactions back to 2004 are not at all unusual.I wonder how many transactions you have? Click on All Transactions in the left sidebar, and then see the number of transactions in your file on the upper right, under the Search box.

If you’ve worked with Quicken Support, you’ve probably already checked this, but just to be sure… can you check to see if you have any open windows other than the main window? (Pull down the Window menu to see if there is anything below “Sync Errors”.)  It’s not unusual for people to open a report, switch back to the main window, and forget about the report which is now hidden behind the main window when they quit and relaunch Quicken — and open reports are the most frequent reason for people experiencing sluggishness using Quicken Mac.

UKR

How many transactions do you have within your largest account?

Consider splitting the account itself into two pieces, within your active data file. Use the year end or the ending date of the latest bank statement as the cutoff date to keep all old transactions in "Largest Account" and move all transactions from this year to the "New Account" register. Working with a smaller register this way should give you better performance without losing your transaction history.

BTW, you mention a "business file". Quicken Mac does not have any small business features. Only Quicken for Windows does. So, what are you using? Quicken Mac or Quicken Windows? What version and release? (Click Help / About Quicken or, on the Mac, click Quicken / About Quicken to get this information.)

Kentucky Kay

@jacobs I don't see anything about sync when I pull down the Window tab. I have closed all my reports. @UKR I have Quicken Premier and here's what it says: Version 6.5.1 (Build 605.42638.100) macOS 11.6. Regarding Small Business Features, I'm really just the payer of bills (bookkeeper) but recently the owners have started having me split out the data on the transactions so they can get some reports on their expenses. @jacobs I have 90,474 transactions.

jacobs

@Kentucky Kay Here is the Window menu and entry I was referring to:

If there is anything below Sync Errors, those are other Quicken windows which are currently open. If there is nothing else, then no other windows are open.

Kentucky Kay said:

I have 90,474 transactions.

Okay, that's a good amount, but it shouldn't be something causing Quicken to slow so significantly that you need to do other things waiting for it to process. (I have about 70,000 transactions in my file.)

In any case, there is currently no automatic way to purge old data. But you can delete some things manually if you wish. for instance if you have some old credit card accounts, or cash expense transactions from 1-+ years ago which you want to delete manually, you can delete entire accounts, or select and delete chunks of transactions. you just have to make careful note of your account balances, as you might need to make an adjustment/opening balance entry after you delete transactions to keep your current account balance the same. Only you know what data you have, and what you may or may not need in the future. 

UKR

Wow ... over 90,000 transactions in one data file. That is, as far as I know, a record.

And thanks for confirming that you are using Quicken for Mac.

Q Mac does not have any functions to split a Quicken data file into two pieces: old transactions vs. new transactions after a certain cutoff date.
But, IMHO, starting a new account register for your largest account within the same Quicken data file might be worth a try, as I said earlier.

jacobs

UKR said:

But, IMHO, starting a new account register for your largest account within the same Quicken data file might be worth a try, as I said earlier.

@UKR I'm curious what your reason is for suggesting that? Quicken Mac uses a robust SQL database, and the number of total transactions, and number of transactions in any given account, should not affect performance. I'm sure all the banking transactions live in one table; it shouldn't matter whether there are 10 accounts with 10,000 transactions each, or 2 accounts with 50,000 transactions each -- it's all a table with 100,000 records to a relational database. 

Kentucky Kay

@jacobs My sync errors looks like yours - light gray. @UKR about 51000 of the transactions are in one account -- the big one. Maybe I should look at another program? I tried others in the past but really liked Quicken better. THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR INPUT AND ADVICE. Maybe I will just start a new account beginning this year for the big one and see if that speeds things up on it.

jacobs

@Kentucky Kay As I wrote above, I really don't think the number of transactions you have should be an issue. I just want to double-back to a question I wrote above about other open windows: are you sure you have only the main Quicken window open -- no reports or accounts in other windows? 

Kentucky Kay

@jacobs No nothing else is open. I went through that with the Quicken people before.

jacobs

@Kentucky Kay While I'm still skeptical that the large number of transactions in the one account is what's causing the slowness, there's a pretty easy way you could test that hypothesis...

• Make a copy of your Quicken data file and call it something like "test".
• Open the test file
• Click the + icon at the top of the left sidebar and select Checking, the same type as your existing one large account is.
• Click the small "My bank is not in the list" link at the bottom of the Add Account window.
• Click Add Manual Account
• Skip the opening balance screen
• Now you have a new, empty account called Checking in your left sidebar
• Control-click on the account in the sidebar and select Rename; name it the same as your existing big account, with a prefix of "Old" (e.g. "Old XYZ Checking")

What we want to do next is to move half, or more than half, the transactions in your big account into this new, empty account. You said you had transactions back to 2004, or about 17 years. Let's move the first 10 (or more if you want) years of transactions into the new account just created.

• Click on your current big account in the left sidebar
• Write down the current balance in the account
• Pull down the All Dates filter and select Custom Dates
• Enter 1/1/2004 to 12/31/2014 as the date range
• Your register should now start with the beginning transaction sometime in 2004 and end with the last transaction in 2014
• Write down the Balance on the last transaction in 2014
• Click on any transaction, then do Command-A (or Edit > Select All) so that all the transactions in the register are highlighted
• Click on any transaction and drag it to the new ("Old XYZ Checking") account in the left sidebar
• The register on the right side of your screen should now be empty
• Click Clear Filters, which will make all the transactions from 2015 through today visible again
• Enter a New transaction, dated 12/31/2014; enter an Amount which is the 12/31/14 ending balance you wrote down, and Category = Adjustment. This is to create an opening balance for the old account to adjust for all the transactions you moved into the "Old XYZ Checking" account.

Now now you have all your transactions from 2004 to 2014 in the "Old XYZ Checking" account, and everything from 2015 to today in the "XYZ Checking" account. You can check to see how many transactions are in each one by clicking each account in the left sidebar and looking at the transaction count under the Search box. Make sure the balance in the current account matches what you wrote down previously as the current balance.

Now that you have a slimmed down main account, try entering a transaction or doing whatever things you know have been running slowly, to see if it now seems any faster.

NOTE: I've never tried moving 20,000+ transactions from one account to another like this, so it's possible Quicken Mac might fail in some way trying this. If it does, you could try moving transactions the same as described above but in smaller chunks, like one year at a time.

Kentucky Kay

@jacobs Ok what if I just try doing it from 2020 forward? Yesterday I tried to move just this year's transactions and any unreconciled transactions but am having trouble getting a balance to match. I'll try to do it today.

jacobs

Kentucky Kay said:

Ok what if I just try doing it from 2020 forward? Yesterday I tried to move just this year's transactions and any unreconciled transactions but am having trouble getting a balance to match.

Sure, you can try that. Find the last transaction in 2019 and note the account balance. Move all the transactions from 2020 forward to a new account. Create an adjustment dated 12/31/19 to create the account balance as of that date, and you should be up and running. Report back when you've tried it, and what (if any) speed differences you see. 

Kentucky Kay

OK - I search a lot and I just started a new file with 2022 and a few unreconciled from 2021 and there is a massive difference in the search - if I search for a number in my old file that rainbow circle rolls and rolls. I think its the massive amount it has to search through. I'll let you know of other differences.