My custom categories, renaming rules, and Quick Fill rules have all disappeared

Question

I'm using Quicken Classic Premier for Mac, Version 7.5.2, on macOS 13.6.1.

I connect with my bank using Quicken Connect.

My bank is Meritrust Credit union.

I had an issue when downloading transactions from my bank. On two different occasions, transfers I had made from one bank account to another did not download correctly (all accounts at Meritrust); in one case the transfer downloaded to one of the accounts, but not the other. In another case the transfer did not show up in either account. The transfers were processed at Meritrust, and showed up properly on the Meritrust online banking website.

I discussed this at length with Quicken Customer support, and after following the steps they recommended, the problem seemed to be resolved. But then I realized all my custom categories, quick fill rules, and renaming rules had disappeared.

Some of the steps taken included creating a new Quicken file and re-downloading all the transactions from Meritrust. It also required resetting the Quicken cloud. I assumed that my custom categories, quick fill rules, and renaming rules were saved in a Quicken settings file on my Mac, and would still be there. Apparently, they were not.

First: where are these categories and rules stored?

Second: is there any way to get them back? Restoring from a previous backup doesn’t seem to work. It wants me to start from scratch and reconnect all my accounts from Meritrust again. But the categories and rules are still gone.

This constitutes a minor disaster, since it appears I’ll have to edit all of the thousands of transactions, create the custom categories, renaming rules and quick fill rules again. This could take weeks or months to do. Please tell me there is a way to go back to a previously saved backup and get the transactions back with their categories and rules intact.

Help, I’m desperate!

John Haley

jacobs · Accepted Answer

First: where are these categories and rules stored?

Categories and rules are stored in your data file. (You can have separate data files — perhaps for a parent, a child, or a non-profit organization — and each has its own lists of categories, tags, actions, rules and settings stored in the file.)

So if you start a new data file, you're leaving behind your categories and rules. You also lose any custom saved reports, any attached documents, your account download logins, and some of your settings.

It's unfortunate that Quicken Customer Service did not inform you that while starting over with a new file might solve some problems you were experiencing, you would lose your customizations to your data file.

That said, it certainly should be possible to step backwards in time to a saved backup file which still has all your old transactions, categories, rules, etc.  Of course, it will still have whatever problem(s) with your account connections that existed previously. Make sure you are opening a backup of your original data file, not a backup of the new file you created from scratch.