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Syncing between desktop and laptop computer

ed9

I have a desktop (windows 10) and laptop (windows 11) . How can I sync quicken between the 2 of them? Can I use dropbox or onedrive? I was reading and it sound like one way is to :copy my latest file on my desktop to a flashdrive, then update laptop, then do quicken work on my laptop, then copy and download to my flashdrive, then insert flashdrive in my desktop and update quicken in my desktop, and then repeat the whole cycle over, when I decide to use quicken on my laptop in a coffee shop. It sounds complicated. What happens if I forget to manually sync the 2 ? Is there an easier way? Thanks for the help and suggrstions.

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Ps56k2

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20354546#Comment_20354546

there are a lot of piece parts that Quicken created internally to support the Mobile App and the Web interface. They only later discovered some issues with Sync and attempting to use across "different" copies of the same QDF file.
Since then, they had to totally rewrite the Copy/Backup menu sequencing.
So… trying to Sync across multiple copies of a QDF file is tricky…

tvpro@

Thank you. Cannot this sync process be used to access the data on different machines sequentially?

splasher

Quicken is constantly writing to the data file every time something is saved. It isn't like Word or Excel that do a save of the whole file whereas Quicken is sending bit & pieces. A single lost bit or piece can corrupt the data file. Sending those bits & pieces over the internet increases that chance of lost/contaminated information.

The practice of having the data file local and only using the cloud to sync it when and only after Quicken is done and closed is a way to have the data file synced between the computers, so shutting down the computer to cloud sync process while Quicken is running is necessary.

tvpro@

Thanks very much. Sorry it took so long to get back, but stuff happened. Is there any explanation why iCloud cannot be used for the Quicken data file? I ran some tests using other systems and of course what not able to produce any failures. I understand it's not supported, but why? Can't it be made to work? Other very complex software can be used collaboratively through the cloud in real time, can not Quicken be made to do this in some simplified fashion? Thanks again.

splasher

@tvpro@

It appears that Quicken, Inc is incapable of doing it. If you read many of the posts on this site, you will find that syncing to the Quicken Cloud Account has been a disaster and has corrupted quite a few Quicken data files, not all, but too many.

The sync process does not just copy the whole file back and forth, QMobile/QWeb downloads information from the financial institutions and allows for manual entry which then tries to mix with the data already entered into desktop Quicken that may or not have already been downloaded from same financial institutions.

tvpro@

It really should be possible to sync two computers. If you can sync to the web then the user should be able to sync back from the web to any system, mobile or desktop to any number of devices with the same account. There is essentially no difference between syncing a computer and a mobile device. I can sync many applications, take Notes for instances, that syncs through three computers, running I think 10, maybe more, systems, and three mobile devices. I'm really surprised that after all this time Quicken has never implemented this feature, which I'm sure many, many users have asked about over the years.

jfclague

I keep my Quicken file on OneDrive (previously Dropbox) and I have never had any issues over the multiple years of doing this. You just need to make sure you pause syncing while in Quicken.

Yes, I know it is recommended to do this by Quicken but there are several users on the forumns that also do this.

splasher

No, you have the BEST way of dealing with it.

What happens if I forget to manually sync the 2 ?

You lose some of your hard work. There is NO sync method built into Quicken that will merge the differences of the two files into one of them, so you lose the new work in one of them.