Stop uploading of attachments to cloud

MattFL

Is it possible to stop Quicken from uploading attachments to the cloud? I do not want any cloud data stored at all, I've disabled Sync in preferences but it's still uploading attachments. If there is no setting in Quicken that will fix this, does anyone know what port they're using for upload so I can block it at my firewall?

Quicken Jared

MattFL said:

Is it possible to stop Quicken from uploading attachments to the cloud? I do not want any cloud data stored at all, I've disabled Sync in preferences but it's still uploading attachments. If there is no setting in Quicken that will fix this, does anyone know what port they're using for upload so I can block it at my firewall?

Hello @MattFL,  

We are sorry for this frustration and confusion regarding syncing. Thank you for inquiring about this here on the Quicken Community. 

First, are you referring to attachments that are appearing in the mobile or web application that were added in the desktop application, or possibly attachments that appear in downloads from your online banking institution? Are you noticing this with any particular account, and if so, what financial institution is associated with those accounts? 

I look forward to your responses, and I hope to work with you further on this issue. 

Thank you,

Quicken Jared 

MattFL

Thanks for your help. I am using the desktop application and referring to attachments to the transactions in the ledger for any of my accounts. The issue started recently after an update. I have every cloud sync option that I can find turned off, yet when I attach a file such as the scan of a receipt to a transaction in the ledger, for a few seconds I see a little cloud icon before the file is attached. Once attached there is a tiny cloud icon that I can click on, and that gives me the option to "Delete from cloud and desktop" or "Delete from cloud only". I don't want it ever going to the cloud to begin with. I would attach a screen shot but I don't see any option here to attach images.

Quicken Jared

MattFL said:

Thanks for your help. I am using the desktop application and referring to attachments to the transactions in the ledger for any of my accounts. The issue started recently after an update. I have every cloud sync option that I can find turned off, yet when I attach a file such as the scan of a receipt to a transaction in the ledger, for a few seconds I see a little cloud icon before the file is attached. Once attached there is a tiny cloud icon that I can click on, and that gives me the option to "Delete from cloud and desktop" or "Delete from cloud only". I don't want it ever going to the cloud to begin with. I would attach a screen shot but I don't see any option here to attach images.

Hello @MattFL, 

Thanks for getting back to me about this problem with cloud syncing. We do apologize for any ongoing confusion. 

When you navigate to Edit > Preferences > Mobile & Web, is the toggle in the right-hand pane set to the OFF position? If so, and this issue is continuing, then it will be necessary to reach out to Quicken Support. You can do this with the information provided in this link. They will need to document and troubleshoot this issue in greater details with the resources and tools uniquely available to them. I wish that I could provide a resolution from the Quicken Community, but this represents the next necessary step in addressing this issue.

I hope that this is helpful, and let me know if you have any other questions. 

Thank you,

Quicken Jared 

Aeowyn

I have had this problem for YEARS. I don't know why Quicken hasn't fixed this issue. Only certain connected accounts have the issue when you try to upload an attachment to the register. - I believe if account is connected via Express web connect it has the problem of uploading to the cloud account even if you don't think you have a cloud account. The easiest way I've found to make sure Quicken doesn't upload your attachments to the cloud is to disconnect from the internet when you upload the attachments.

There is another workaround I found that is a pain. Even though I have all my cloud stuff turned off (I don't want any of my Quicken info in the cloud!), Quicken still creates a cloud file (not sure what they do with it). You can't see the file if you have Mobile & Web turned off. So I created a dummy quicken file (new collection of accounts separate file from the one I use). From my dummy file, I turn on Web & Mobile. Then I go Edit->Preferences->Quicken ID & Cloud Accounts and delete the cloud account for my real Quicken file. Then I go back into my real file and it shouldn't upload to the cloud because the cloud file doesn't exist. However, as soon as you run a one step update, it creates the stupid cloud file again and you are back to having the problem.

Chris_QPW

MattFL said:

Is it possible to stop Quicken from uploading attachments to the cloud? I do not want any cloud data stored at all, I've disabled Sync in preferences but it's still uploading attachments. If there is no setting in Quicken that will fix this, does anyone know what port they're using for upload so I can block it at my firewall?

No, there isn't a setting to disable this.  And there isn't going to be separate port for just uploading attachments.  You would have to completely block Quicken from any online access.

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7882641/qcs-express-web-connect-is-cloud-sync

MattFL

> @Aeowyn said:
> I have had this problem for YEARS. I don't know why Quicken hasn't fixed this issue. Only certain connected accounts have the issue when you try to upload an attachment to the register. - I believe if account is connected via Express web connect it has the problem of uploading to the cloud account even if you don't think you have a cloud account. The easiest way I've found to make sure Quicken doesn't upload your attachments to the cloud is to disconnect from the internet when you upload the attachments.
>
> There is another workaround I found that is a pain. Even though I have all my cloud stuff turned off (I don't want any of my Quicken info in the cloud!), Quicken still creates a cloud file (not sure what they do with it). You can't see the file if you have Mobile & Web turned off. So I created a dummy quicken file (new collection of accounts separate file from the one I use). From my dummy file, I turn on Web & Mobile. Then I go Edit->Preferences->Quicken ID & Cloud Accounts and delete the cloud account for my real Quicken file. Then I go back into my real file and it shouldn't upload to the cloud because the cloud file doesn't exist. However, as soon as you run a one step update, it creates the stupid cloud file again and you are back to having the problem.

Thank you this is great info. Can you please post the name of the file you were deleting? I'll just script something to delete the file automatically after I update my accounts.

My theory is they're not fixing this because they're skimming our data from the attachments and using or selling it. There's no other reason not to fix this.

Chris_QPW

MattFL said:

Thank you this is great info. Can you please post the name of the file you were deleting? I'll just script something to delete the file automatically after I update my accounts.

I'm not sure where you got the idea that you could delete a file for this.  There isn't any file you can delete.
The only way to delete an attachment out of the Quicken Cloud dataset is to use menu item, and only one at a time:

MattFL said:

My theory is they're not fixing this because they're skimming our data from the attachments and using or selling it. There's no other reason not to fix this.

That isn't my belief, laziness, poor programming and not feeling the demand from the users are what I believe is the reason it hasn't been changed.

Quicken Inc Windows developers don't seem to have a good handle on how all the parts of Quicken work and as such end up with such results.  Here are some examples.

Recently they changed find and replace to allow for multiple conditions like "And/Or".  They didn't change Find, and in the process, they broke the global search bar at the top of Quicken.

They made the drag and drop of attachments sync to the Quicken Cloud dataset, whereas the menus don't.  Clearly there isn't a "policy" on attachments have to be synced to the Quicken Cloud dataset, just one programmer implementing a feature in a certain way not thinking/knowing about how it should all work.

In my opinion the attachments are getting synced for Express Web Connect/Express Web Connect + accounts because someone stated, "We need to put Quicken Inc in the middle of this process so that we can monitor what is failing."  This was actually stated as the reason by Quicken Inc as the reason for doing this, I'm not just guessing at that.  And the quickest way to do that was to use the existing Sync to Mobile/Web, which if you were using you would expect your attachments to be saved to the Quicken Cloud dataset.  So, they needed to make an exception for this use case, and never did.

Aeowyn

The file you need to delete is not on your computer, it is in the cloud. The only way I know to delete it is to create another file from the one you use (for example I created "Dummy.QDF". In this file I have Mobile & Web Turned on - you won't be able to see your cloud files if it is turned off. Then from "Preferences" click on "Quicken ID & Cloud Accounts". I've attempted to attach a picture of what you'll see with some data covered up.

At the bottom of the screen click on "Cloud accounts associated with this Quicken ID" and for me it has (2) after it because I have 2 quicken files with associated cloud data. This brings up another screen: "List of cloud accounts (datasets) that are associated with your Quicken files. Delete the ones that are not in use." You will not be able to delete the file that is associated to the quicken file you are currently in (thus the reason I created a dummy file). You select the one associated with your primary quicken file (it is whatever you named your .QDF file) and click delete.

I will put a warning out there - I'm not sure if this is going to mess anything up. I would certainly back up your file before doing this. For this round of uploading attachments I decided to just unplug from the internet. I did often get an error screen when Quicken failed to upload to the cloud -but I just closed it.

Aeowyn

The file you need to delete is not on your computer, it is in the cloud. The only way I know to delete it is to create another file from the one you use (for example I created "Dummy.QDF". In this file I have Mobile & Web Turned on - you won't be able to see your cloud files if it is turned off. Then from "Preferences" click on "Quicken ID & Cloud Accounts". I've attempted to attach a picture of what you'll see with some data covered up.

At the bottom of the screen click on "Cloud accounts associated with this Quicken ID" and for me it has (2) after it because I have 2 quicken files with associated cloud data. This brings up another screen: "List of cloud accounts (datasets) that are associated with your Quicken files. Delete the ones that are not in use." You will not be able to delete the file that is associated to the quicken file you are currently in (thus the reason I created a dummy file). Select the one associated with your primary quicken file (it is whatever you named your .QDF file) and click delete.

I will put a warning out there - I'm not sure if this is going to mess anything up. I would certainly back up your file before doing this. For this round of uploading attachments, I decided to just unplug from the internet. I did often get an error screen when Quicken failed to upload to the cloud, but I just closed it.

Aeowyn

I found some good info on what the cloud account is used for from Boatnmaniac here: https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7927467/quicken-uploaded-data-despite-cloud-sync-off-how-to-delete

MattFL

> @Chris_QPW said:
>...snip....<
> In my opinion the attachments are getting synced for Express Web Connect/Express Web Connect + accounts because someone stated, "We need to put Quicken Inc in the middle of this process so that we can monitor what is failing."  This was actually stated as the reason by Quicken Inc as the reason for doing this, I'm not just guessing at that.  And the quickest way to do that was to use the existing Sync to Mobile/Web, which if you were using you would expect your attachments to be saved to the Quicken Cloud dataset.  So, they needed to make an exception for this use case, and never did.

I'm on the fence as to whether this is incompetence, or nefarious (skimming uploaded attachments to use for financial gain, even if in aggregate). As a software engineer myself who sits on the SSDL group at work, they MUST know exactly where the data goes and why. If a customer turns off the feature that sends data to a server Intuit owns, but they send the data anyway, that's a big legal liability. If there's a breach and that data is leaked, it's a class action suit waiting to happen. We go through so much testing at work, specifically for security, and one of the pieces is a dataflow diagram that shows the entire lifecycle of users data. Where it's created, where it goes and where it is deleted. Surely these guys have the same thing, if they're competent, and they would know that even though the switch to sync is turned off by the user, they're sending data anyway. So they know about it, and they've released the product anyway, so it's intentional. The only question is why, and since having the data adds overhead cost (owning and managing the severs) and is a liability, I can't think of any reason other than it must be making them money somehow. Disabling the auto-upload in the desktop app would be almost less than trivial, so it's forced-on intentionally.

The backup tab says nothing about backing up to the cloud, and says explicitly "Backups are stored on your computer's hard drive", so backup is not the reason they're uploading the data.

I attached an image of what I'm seeing on my side after attaching a file, even though sync to the web is turned off, as well as my sync settings and a snapshot of the backup settings tab.

I appreciate your response, my grumpiness is aimed towards Intuit.

Chris_QPW

First off let me comment on @Aeowyn's suggestion about deleting the Quicken cloud dataset.  Yes, that will delete the attachments in the "cloud", but note that the Quicken cloud dataset holds lot more data than just the attachments and as such depending on the features the user is using it can mess up things, but more importantly, as long as the person is using Express Web Connect or Express Web Connect + Quicken is going to continue to sync the attachments.  Deleting them by deleting the Quicken Cloud dataset would only be effective if you were trying to clear out ones that aren't going to be resynced like maybe ones that got added because you used the drag and drop.

@MattFL we will never know if this is done on purpose or not, and this is something that my wife and I have contention with from time to time.  She is prone to believing in conspiracies theories.  On the other hand, I have seen a lot of incompetence in my life.  Conspiracies take a lot of skill and work to pull off.  Incompetence only takes laziness and stupidity, which I think the human race has an abundance of.  So, I tend to believe most of this is incompetence.

Also, you keep mentioning Intuit. Intuit has nothing to do with this.  This is all Quicken Inc.  The sync to Quicken Cloud dataset is from Quicken (the program) to Quicken servers.  Intuit is Quicken Inc's aggregator these days.  That means they download the transactions from the financial institution, and it is the Quicken servers that get the transactions from the Intuit servers.   At least for Express Web Connect and Express Web Connect + (Direct Connect is between Quicken (the program) and the financial institution).  At no point would the Intuit servers see your attachments.

As for the backup not specifying that it is going to communicate/synch with the Quicken Cloud dataset, well I don't understand how you could possibly believe that Quicken Inc developers specify in the dialogs everything they are going to do.  It is hard enough to get any information out of Quicken Inc (and Intuit before them) how any of this works.  Let alone them "asking permission/stating what they are going to do" for every operation that Quicken performs.

Aeowyn

It is a bug in Quicken that it uploads attachments when you add them with sync turned off. I can tell you that for the period of time you have the cloud dataset removed, it does not upload to the cloud when you add the attachments. When you do a one step update with sync turned off, it creates a new cloud dataset but it does NOT upload your existing attachments.

One of the reasons I don't like the cloud attachment upload is that I'm in the boonies with poor internet and it is a severe time lag to upload to the cloud. It would bring my one step update to it's knees if it were uploading all my attachments. I can also go to any of my attachments and there is no option to delete them from the cloud because they are not there.

Chris_QPW

It's good to know that it doesn't upload the existing ones after you delete the Quicken Cloud dataset, I thought I saw differently before, but I haven't really checked in a long time so my memory could be fuzzy on that.

I agree that it is a bug.  I don't know how Quicken Inc views it, but I see no efforts to change it.  Quicken Inc inserting the Quicken Cloud dataset/sync into the flow was started at the beginning of 2020 and finalized by October of that year, and as soon as it was started I and others pointed out that it was syncing attachments when it shouldn't, and they haven't changed it yet.