Archive End-of-Year File, a word to the wise

lawrs21813

12 Dec 2022

My current Quicken file is 287 MB large because I've been using Quicken since 2000. I called Quicken Support because every transaction in every register that I accept manually because of needed corrections, takes 14 seconds to complete & then allow me to proceed to the next Quicken task. I called Quicken Support to ask for help. The expert said that to speed up Quicken I need to delete a lot of old data and make the Quicken file much smaller. I do think that Quicken SEEMS to write the entire file to my SSD after each transaction, so what she said might be true. I decided to give Archive End-of-Year file a whirl. I was aware that the new Current file would retain all unreconciled data, and all INVESTMENT transactions, but I thought it might make my Quicken data file significantly smaller.

I followed the instructions at each stage.
HOWEVER, I failed to note that for low these many years I have used C = Clear transactions, without needing to R = Reconciled transactions!

MY RESULTS: Quicken created two new files. A) The smaller file was only 9,565 KB smaller than the original file. The ARCHIVE file did NOT end at 12/31/2019. I could live with that, it contains all the old data I might need later. It also retained all the account passwords. I tested downloads and could download new data as needed. C) The new CURRENT file did NOT begin at 01/01/2020 as Quicken said it would. Further it did NOT remember all the password to all my accounts. In short it did NOT trim 20 years of data at all, even in bank accounts.

I guess I'm free to try again after I RECONCILE all my registers.

My simple questions to those who have successfully used Archive to End-of-Year.
a) Was it worth it to you? What did you gain?
b) Does making files a lot smaller actually speed up Quicken, particularly at the accept individual transactions level?
[I can live with Quicken's slow initial boot on opening the program.]
c) Any other thoughtful comments? I have no use for ankle-biting attempts at ironic humor.

Thank you in Advance for your thoughtful comments.
A 23-year Quicken User

Chris_QPW

None of the SuperUsers use Year end copy.  Not only doesn't not speed up anything, it breaks up your data file, which is almost impossible to put back together again.

fanfare

It doesn't matter how big you Quicken file gets (unless your computer is obsolete).
If transactions take 15 seconds or more, something else is going wrong.

Chris_QPW

None of the SuperUsers use Year end copy.  Not only doesn't not speed up anything, it breaks up your data file, which is almost impossible to put back together again.

fanfare

It doesn't matter how big you Quicken file gets (unless your computer is obsolete).
If transactions take 15 seconds or more, something else is going wrong.

lawrs21813

BOTH very helpful comments. Wish Quicken would take the hint, although I will say it is much better since spun out of the mother company.

Mark1104

I have used Q for 28 years.  that archive function was VERY NECESSARY back in the 1990s when harddrives were relatively small and RAM was quite little.  It was necessary to break up the file each year just because of the capacity of the desktop itself  

I stopped archiving around 2000,  when desktop horsepower increased.  The Quicken function is a relic of the past and do not understand why anyone would use it with today's desktop operating systems.  

ps my file is 250mg has 22 years of transactions and works fine.

HammoJ

Thanks for the reassurance about large files after many years of using Quicken.