File Optimization for Improved Performance

stustra

Are there any best practices to improve Quicken's performance? I have Quicken for Windows -- Quicken Deluxe R45.21 Windows 2010 Enterprise -- and it is very slow (e.g., takes a few seconds to tab through and process individual transactions). I have been using Quicken for ~20 years and have a lot of date (e.g., 20,000 transactions, no attachments, file size = 200MB). I read through various discussion threads and it seems like most experts are against archiving old years of data (and I'm concerned about deleting old data or old accounts since everything is linked and it would likely break something else like balances in linked accounts or reconciliations.

So does anyone have good ideas/tips on how to improve performance? Thanks.

Chris_QPW

Here are my very general statements on performance, and I will start with a current problem.

1. There is a resource leak problem that has been introduced not too long ago, and it means that if you leave Quicken open for extended periods of time, the performance and even crashing will suffer.  At least for now, do what you need to do in Quicken and quit.
2. The size of a data file has very little to do with the performance of Quicken.  It is a database and Quicken only reads what it needs to do what it needs to perform tasks, and information is cached in memory for things like the transactions.  This is the reason opening an account the first time in a session is slower then opening it again.  The big exception to this is investment accounts/transactions.  Because of what I believe is a bad GUI and maybe how they are constantly calculating things, Quicken can't handle large amount of transactions/securities/security lots/in a given investment account.  If your bad performance is in a given investment account, this is most likely the problem.  There is a relatively new "archive" feature in Quicken that might be able to help.  Click the gear icon and then Archive Transactions.  Basically, it is going to move transactions from that account to another, and then put in transactions to fix up the cash balance.
3. Note that if you use the year end copy it will handle the things you are concerned about as far as balances and such, but it will not archive any investment transactions.  The handling of security lots that would have to be broken up and such must have been deemed too complicated and they just didn't do it.  This is another reason year end copy isn't going to fix investment transaction related problems.  What's more it is EXTREMELY painful to try to merge data files if you ever want to get the data back together.
4. Running Validate and Repair and Super Validate and repair can sometimes clean up problems that are causing the performance to be bad.  Super validate is started the same way as Validate, but you hold down Ctrl+Shift as you select the menu items.  Note you are going to select "Validate File".
5. You can also try "Create a copy or template", which is some cases can also clear up problems.  But note that it will disconnect all online services and you will have to reconnect them all.

NotACPA

I'd additionally suggest the you drop back to R44.28, which you can download from here, and then install: https://www.quicknperlwiz.com/quicken-subscription-patches.html

splasher

Here are some things that have been found to help in the past, but the last few releases have introduced some issues.

FAQ - Improve Quicken’s performance?

[link updated]

Rocket J Squirrel

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