Do I have to use Quicken Cloud?

Dan R NC

I'm not really interested in having a copy of my data in the Quicken cloud. Is this a requirement? Is use of the Quicken Cloud required to be able to download transactions from my bank or investment company?

If it's not a requirement, how do I get my data that is currently in the Quicken Cloud out of the cloud?

Thanks

jacobs

There are a few layers to answering your question…

Every Quicken data file on your computer has a Quicken Cloud account associated with it. However, if you have Sync turned off, none of your transactions are saved in Quicken Cloud.  So if, for instance, you entered all your transactions manually, and had Sync turned off, none of your data would reside in Quicken Cloud; just some identifying information about your Quicken account.

If you previously had Sync turned on, but now turn it off, clicking Reset in preferences will wipe out the data which had previously been stored on Quicken's servers… and it won't be replaced.

But that's only part of the story. If you connect to your financial institutions to download transactions, as most Quicken users do, then it depends on what type of connections you use.

• If your financial institution offers, and you use, Direct Connect, then your desktop Quicken program is talking directly to the financial institution's servers, so nothing is seen or stored by Quicken.
• If your financial institution offers, and you use, Web Connect — where you download a QFX file from the financial institution to your desktop, and then import that into Quicken, that is also stored only locally and not in Quicken Cloud.
• But if you use Quicken Connect, that service is serving as a proxy for users in order to download data from each financial institution once a day, store it, and then download it to your desktop Quicken when you connect. So if you're using Quicken Connect, your transaction data has to be stored in Quicken Cloud because this aggregation service is a cloud-based service. 

jacobs

I answered too quickly before. If you are using Quicken Connect (Express Web Connect in Windows), then the password is being stored on Quicken's server. It pretty much has to be, because the whole purpose of an aggregation service like this is to have Quicken's server log into a financial institution's server, generally at a slow time overnight, to pull in data and hold it for Quicken users until they ask to download it to their desktop. 

If you are using Direct Connect or Web Connect, then there's no need for login credentials to be stored in the cloud.

jacobs

There are a few layers to answering your question…

Every Quicken data file on your computer has a Quicken Cloud account associated with it. However, if you have Sync turned off, none of your transactions are saved in Quicken Cloud.  So if, for instance, you entered all your transactions manually, and had Sync turned off, none of your data would reside in Quicken Cloud; just some identifying information about your Quicken account.

If you previously had Sync turned on, but now turn it off, clicking Reset in preferences will wipe out the data which had previously been stored on Quicken's servers… and it won't be replaced.

But that's only part of the story. If you connect to your financial institutions to download transactions, as most Quicken users do, then it depends on what type of connections you use.

• If your financial institution offers, and you use, Direct Connect, then your desktop Quicken program is talking directly to the financial institution's servers, so nothing is seen or stored by Quicken.
• If your financial institution offers, and you use, Web Connect — where you download a QFX file from the financial institution to your desktop, and then import that into Quicken, that is also stored only locally and not in Quicken Cloud.
• But if you use Quicken Connect, that service is serving as a proxy for users in order to download data from each financial institution once a day, store it, and then download it to your desktop Quicken when you connect. So if you're using Quicken Connect, your transaction data has to be stored in Quicken Cloud because this aggregation service is a cloud-based service. 

Dan R NC

Hey Jacobs! You helped again. Thanks for the detailed response. I did not know that when I was using Q Win that it was storing something in the Cloud. In QW, I think the bank was connected using Express Connect, which I think I read today is the same thing as Quicken Connect.

So my next question is, if Quicken is downloading info every day from my bank, is going to automatically show up in Q Mac whenever I fire up the program (which normally is once a week)? It didn't do that in Q Win. So I'm assuming it will only download transactions when I Update Selected Online Account (all bank accounts associated with the Selected Account in Q Mac).

The question after that is related to what happens in QW when I would go to update my bank data, which I would normally only do once a month. In QW, I selected the Financial Institution to update and then put in my password. I don't think that's the way in works in QM, right? So what happens when I change the login password at my bank, which I do once a month?

jacobs

Dan R NC said:

I did not know that when I was using Q Win that it was storing something in the Cloud. In QW, I think the bank was connected using Express Connect, which I think I read today is the same thing as Quicken Connect.

Yes, Express Web Connect (EWC) is the same as Quicken Connect. I don't know why they didn't change one name or the other to use the same name at some point! So yes, you were always having some of your data stored on a Quicken server.

Dan R NC said:

So my next question is, if Quicken is downloading info every day from my bank, is going to automatically show up in Q Mac whenever I fire up the program (which normally is once a week)? It didn't do that in Q Win. So I'm assuming it will only download transactions when I Update Selected Online Account (all bank accounts associated with the Selected Account in Q Mac).

It will show up in your Quicken data file when you do Update Selected Account or Update All (the little circular arrow at the top of the left sidebar). But be aware that if you do Update Selected Account for a Quicken Connect account, all your Quicken Connect data will download, not just that one account. 

Dan R NC said:

The question after that is related to what happens in QW when I would go to update my bank data, which I would normally only do once a month. In QW, I selected the Financial Institution to update and then put in my password. I don't think that's the way in works in QM, right? So what happens when I change the login password at my bank, which I do once a month?

Quicken Mac stores your account passwords in your Mac's Keychain. I'm not sure if there's a way to not store an account password and be prompted to enter it every time; hopefully one of the other Mac experts here will chime in on the best way to manage that. 

Dan R NC

The answer to my question about what will happen if I change my account password at my bank is:

The Accounts> Update Selected Accounts command puts up a dialog box saying there is an error logging in. I have three accounts at my Financial Institution and all three of them showed an error (not surprised). Beside each one was a "Resolve" button. At the bottom of the dialog box was a "Update Password" button (I think that what it was). I clicked on one of the "Resolve" buttons. It wound up giving me a dialog box to log back into my bank so I could enter the new password.

There was also a check box at the bottom of this dialog box saying to Save Password in Keychain. I unchecked it (don't save in keychain). After clicking Continue, it appeared as though Q Mac was able to update my accounts.

A few minutes later I tried to update the accounts again. Since I unchecked the save in keychain box I expected to get an error, but I did not and Q Mac updated the accounts again. I know this because when I hovered my cursor over the clock next to Today's Balance, it said the last time updated was the same as the current time. So much for that checkbox.

jacobs

Unchecking the save-in-keychain box may not actually remove existing logins already stored there. You should use the Mac's Keychain Access application (in your Applications > Utilities folder) to look for any remove any keychain entries for your financial institutions. Search for Quicken" and then look for entries with a name like "Quicken password for customer [your username at your financial institution] at [name of financial institution]".

Dan R NC

Nope, I don't have any entries like that, but then I don't think I had any entries like that when I looked in the Keychain yesterday *before* I changed the password for my bank's login today (that may be because I may have unchecked that box the first time I tried to download transactions from my bank into Q Mac). Even if there was one there before, it should have only held the old password which would have caused a login error, right?

The only entries I have that are Quicken related are for "Quicken" (probably because my Quicken file is password protected and it's the only one dated today), "Quicken WebCrypto Master Key" (don't know what this is), and "signin.quicken.com (Passwords not saved)". The first two have little pencils next to them and the last has a blue circle @ symbol, which must indicated it is a web password.

Perhaps Q Mac has access to/remembers the password for the bank as long as the file is open and that's why it could access my bank's accounts more than once.

[Well, this guess is wrong. I closed the file and opened it again and Q Mac was still able to update the accounts, which is disappointing. I like being able to to authorize access to my accounts on a once-at-a-time basis.]

jacobs

Dan R NC said:

I closed the file and opened it again and Q Mac was still able to update the accounts, which is disappointing. I like being able to to authorize access to my accounts on a once-at-a-time basis.

Out of curiosity, why do you care? These are not passwords stored somewhere in the cloud; they're on your own Mac. 

Dan R NC

Umm...Hmm...you know, that's a good question.

I guess that's one of the differences between the way I was using Q Win and now Q Mac. And maybe I didn't have to do it the way I have been doing it on Windows for 20 or so years. Every time I wanted to update transactions I click on One Step Update, select the Financial Institution and enter the password. It wasn't stored anywhere (as far as I knew). With the Mac, as you say, it's stored on my machine and not in a cloud. That should be making my life easier, and who isn't for that?

Jacob, thank you so much. I apologize for taking your time. You are very generous with it, not just with me but many other people here, as I've seen.

Dan R NC

But if there's nothing in the Keychain like you thought there should be, where it is being stored?

jacobs

I answered too quickly before. If you are using Quicken Connect (Express Web Connect in Windows), then the password is being stored on Quicken's server. It pretty much has to be, because the whole purpose of an aggregation service like this is to have Quicken's server log into a financial institution's server, generally at a slow time overnight, to pull in data and hold it for Quicken users until they ask to download it to their desktop. 

If you are using Direct Connect or Web Connect, then there's no need for login credentials to be stored in the cloud.