Trying year end copy saving only last few years and it still saves everything

Divemaster

I try the copy or backup file and enter the below screen. When it's done I still have all transactions back to 2011 in my current file. Why is this, am I doing something totally wrong?

Chris_QPW

Are you aware of the restrictions for removing transactions?

If the transaction is a transfer, both sides have to be reconciled.

No investment transactions will be touched.

As usual, I don't use this feature, but yet again have just tried it to see if anything has changed. Nothing has changed for me, still works as designed.

I might suggest that you select the ? icon and look at the comment that the Quicken developers put at the top of that help page.

Ps56k2

never understand why folks using any of these extra data file clipping methods -

just for discussion - WHY are you attempting to do this ?

Most of us never trim our Quicken QDF data file - since it has all our data, and makes it easy to find things…
A trimmed QDF does not run any faster - and it makes it almost impossible to go find something from the past -

Divemaster

Will try again some day, but I know about reconcile and have no investments. Everything was reconciled and show the R way back to 2011. I did the ? and don't remember anything that struck me, but admit I gave one look and didn't see anything that caught my eye. All seemed pretty simple.

Now I will try to answer Ps56k2. It is just because of my background in IT. I was an application programmer for a few years and then because I was good with reading binary and hexadecimal (back then had to read many core dumps) as well as fixing people problems I got into technical support of system software on large mainframes computers. Also, at that time we had sever thousand PC connected as well as dumb terminals. At that time we used a network from Novell which was better than Microsoft actually, but not know couldn't overcome the Microsoft. I retired in January 2006 after 38 years in IT. Back then it was essential to keep data to a minimal as drive space was much different than today. So lots of time was spent making sure only essential data was online and the rest was archived (most on tape drives). It was available if needed. Actually if it got old enough it was stored in some old salt mines in Hutchinson Kansas. Also, because we had many agencies using data we couldn't risk someone blowing up data center and all data was mirrored on drives 200 miles away.

With all the new technology I would think things have changes, just stuck in my old ways of getting rid of what isn't needed. So a short answer, just an old IT guy stuck in his old ways.

Chris_QPW

As a programmer I look at this problem a bit differently.

You never have infinity anything. You are always weighing something again something else.

I have had programmers swear that they "write optimized code right from the start.". You can write bad code that no one can figure out from the start, and you can avoid stupid mistakes, but it is impossible to write optimized code until you know what to optimize. And that can change over time.

When new programmers look at old code, they sometimes think that the developer must have been crazy to do certain things, but mostly it is either they don't fully understand the problem, or what was important back in the day isn't any more.

It is important "not to waste", but as a programmer one shouldn't be wasting their time either. If a programmer spends hours to make a loop faster say from 1/2 second to .1 of a second, but that loop is only used in a GUI function waiting for the user to hit a button. They have just wasted their time on something that doesn't count.

Why bring this up here?

If you break out your data files into pieces you have just taken on the role of maintaining them. It isn't as bad now when Quicken Inc hasn't changed the format of the data file but imagine doing this in the past and having a series of archived files that before they can be used, they have to converted to the newest format.

But even more important if you ever find yourself in the situation of needing any of that archived data then here is the fun you are going to have. First off, you are going to have to guess what year the data was in. Then you are going to have to open up that data file, which unless you went into it is going to have "live reminders" that are going to want to update to today.

In other words, you just trade your time for some disk space.

Chris_QPW

P.S. If you ever decide you need those data files combined, then you will see what real work you have set yourself up for.

Divemaster

Understand what you are saying, but I wouldn't keep the archives, they would get deleted. Just like today I deleted lots of old Turbo Tax data, don't need anymore than 5 years. Actually I think by law it's 3 years, but 5 years won't hurt.

Chris_QPW

Well, if you don't want them at all, then that is a different story.

Divemaster

I understand what you are saying and appreciate your comments and support you contribute to this forum. Have a good day and depending on where you are at don't forget to set clock back. I have a few that I still have to set back manually.