Number of Accounts Permitted in One File

Eric in AZ

Hello All,
Although I've been using Quicken in one form or another since the '80s (remember DOS anyone?), I'm new to this Forum.
I understand that a Quicken file can have up to 512 Accounts of EACH TYPE (there seem to be six types of Accounts: Spending, Savings, Credit, Investment, Asset, and Liability). Since I have been using my file for so many years, I sometimes worry about running out of Accounts. If I find that I don't need an Account any longer, and it has only a few transactions that are quite old, I will sometimes re-categorize the transactions so that the Account is empty, and then rename the Account as "Available Asset 01" or some such, so I can re-use it when something new comes along. I believe that if you actually delete the Account, its spot is lost forever and reduces the 512 count permanently. I'm sure I deleted lots of Accounts over the years before I learned of the 512 limit.
The crux of my question is this: Is there any way to find out how many Accounts have been deleted in each type? Or, more specifically, how many of each type are still available for future use?
Thank you.

Frankx

Hi @Eric in AZ,

While I cannot point to a specific place, either here in the community or on any specific Quicken webpage, to support this, it is my understanding that deleting an account (or accounts) reduces the number of accounts that you have.  And the limitation is on existing accounts, not including deleted accounts.

Therefore you only need to manage the number of accounts that are live/active/existing today (as opposed to dead, deleted, or erased).  And ergo, you don't need to find out how many accounts you may have deleted.  As far as a method to determine how many accounts of each type you have - the Account List is the place I go for that information.

Hope this helps.

Frankx

Eric in AZ

Hi Frankx,

Thanks for taking the time to reply.

I got my information regarding accounts becoming "dead" and not re-usable here:
https://www.quicken.com/support/size-or-capacity-limitations-quicken-data-file

That seems to be an "official" web page (as opposed to this Community) so I assume it's gospel. It would appear that once you delete an account from a specific "type" (let's say "Savings") it reduces that 512 total by one. So if you've got 50 active savings accounts, that's 50 out of 512 only if you never deleted one (or more) at a past time. If you did some deleting years ago and don't remember it, you don't have 462 left anymore. That's why I don't delete an account that I have emptied. I just rename it to something like "available" and re-use it when needed.

I'm probably not explaining this very well, but I was just hoping there might be a tool a user could run to find out how many are left out of the original 512 in each group. It's not the end of the world, and I thank you again for chipping in.

Eric

Frankx

Hi again @Eric in AZ,

Yes I had viewed that guidance. 

I also just found this message thread LINK, of a couple of years ago where some of the superusers discussed the question of whether deleted accounts would count towards the limit.  And consistent with my comment above, they seemed to think that they would not.  I believe that is where I may have reached my understanding of this issue.  

I have not seen anything on point, directly from the Quicken moderators in this Community, so you may want to direct a message to them to see if they can definitively confirm or deny how the maximum number is calculated.  And I don't think there is a tool to determine where you stand, although it would be helpful.

I do understand you point about not ever deleting accounts - "just in case" (you weren't a depression baby- were you?   

Frankx  

Eric in AZ

Hahaha. No, not at all. Just parsimonious about my Quicken accounts!
BTW, the "link" that you included leads to "you don't have permission" or something like that.
Anyway, we've beaten this to death, so I'm ready to just let it go. Thanks again.
E