Growing file size (Q Mac)

magoodm

I've been posting about this for several years. My working file size is now 361mb with a backup size of 120mb. It grew by 5mb over the weekend after entering, at most, a dozen simple items consisting of bank and credit card transactions. My data goes back to 1989 with 97,000 transactions and zero attachments. Looking at package contents, 355mb is data. Any ideas about what might be going on?

jacobs

@magoodm Hmm, that does seem odd. For a data point of comparison, I have a file going back about the same amount of time, with about 72,000 transactions, and my data file size is 95 MB (of which 90 MB is the 'data' component.

The only thing I can think of where my data might be light compared to others of a similar age is in the table which holds security prices, as I seem to have fewer securities than some other users, and I update accounts and pull in security prices only a few times a week. But I can't imagine the security prices take up a huge amount of space in the database — certainly not enough to explain why yours is 3.5 times larger than mine.

My backup file size is currently 34 MB, and it was 32 MB one year ago, so my actual data file size has increased about 6 MB over an entire year.

I don't have an explanation for the file size differences you and I are seeing. You've ruled out the most typical source of file size bloat: attachments. Maybe some of the other longtime Quicken Mac folks here might have thoughts about this.

As an experiment, you could export your data file to a QXF file — File > Export > Quicken Transfer File (QXF) — then create a new file — File > New > Start from Scratch — and import the QXF file. You'll lose some things doing this: saved reports, budgets, settings, register column configurations, and account logins — but the new file should contain all your core data. See what the size of that file is. You may not want to continue with this file because of the things you'd need to set up again, but just as an exercise to see the new file size, it might be interesting. I just tried this experiment on my file, and the result was a new data file which is 86 MB in size — about 10% smaller than my original file. It would be interesting if your results show a much larger size decrease, which could indicate that there is something bloated in some part of the original database. Unfortunately, even if we discover that's the case, there's nothing you can act of to reduce the size of your original file; you either have to keep going with it or switch to the export/import file and get it all set up again.

RickO

There was a situation way back when that I think was solved some time ago where the underlying database was duplicated inside the Quicken file wrapper, greatly enlarging the size of the file. This shouldn't be the case anymore, but in case you want to check:

1. Quit Quicken
2. Right click on the Quicken data file
3. Click Show Package Contents
4. The only GB-size file should be called "data". If you see a duplicate of that file with a slightly different name, then…
5. Make a copy of your file and in case there's a problem.
6. Delete the duplicate of "data".
7. Open the modified data and make sure everything looks good and is up to date.
8. If so, then you can use the modified (smaller file) and delete the duplicate you made.

Jon

If you have the file security option turned on so that your file is encrypted when closed then the "data" file will be very small since everything is zipped up into the "catalog" file. You'll need to open the file in Quicken first and then look at the Package Contents to see what it really looks like.

I remember a couple years ago having an issue with my Quicken file size growing by 100's of megabytes over a period of months and then shrinking down again. Hasn't been an issue since then.

jacobs

There was a situation way back when that I think was solved some time ago where the underlying database was duplicated inside the Quicken file wrapper, greatly enlarging the size of the file.

@RickO I thought of that situation, but @magoodm already ruled it out: the initial post says the data file is 361 MB, and inside the package contents, the database ("data") is 355 MB. 

RickO

Oops, missed that somehow.

magoodm

@jacobs you suggested the export to qxf and then import it when I brought this up in August of 2022. I tried it and the result was that the file grew! By the way, my file size then was 254mb. So it's grown more than 100mb in less than 2 years. I wish the developers would ask to see my file and try to figure out what's going on under the hood.

jacobs

I wish the developers would ask to see my file and try to figure out what's going on under the hood.

Yes, that would be great, but the developers don’t read the posts on this site. You could try calling Quicken Support, but I think you’d have to be really lucky to get a good representative who understands and thinks it’s a problem they need to document and escalate.

Quicken Anja

Hello @magoodm,

We will be forwarding this issue to the proper channels to have this further investigated. However, we request that you please navigate to Help > Report a problem within your Quicken program and submit a problem report with log files and screenshots attached in order to contribute to the investigation. It would also aid the investigation to include a sanitized file when submitting the problem report. A sanitized file is a data file that removes personally identifiable information so you can comfortably share this file with the Quicken team.

While you will not receive a response through this submission, these reports will help our teams in further investigating the issue.

Thank you!

magoodm

Quicken Anja. Thanks for the suggestion. I will report the problem.

Quicken Anja

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20429620#Comment_20429620

You're welcome and thanks for submitting logs and a sanitized file. It has been sent over to the proper channels to further investigate.

Thank you!
(CTP-9792)