Updating old Quicken

acorgihouse

I used Quicken since it came out on 5-1/4" floppy and was basically a computerized checkbook that could print checks. About five years ago, lot of things happened, and I lost track of it. I have not kept things updated, not only downloads of account info, and reconciliations, but changing and new/closed accounts. Now it is a bit of a mess. I want to begin using again, but trying to decide where to start. My gut feeling is to do a backup of everything, store in external location in case I ever need, and delete current Quicken software (Classic 2019). Then reinstall Quicken fresh, and only put in it from ~2017 forward. Install only what is current, and any accounts or info recent enough to potentially need for tax purposes last 3-7 years. Will this work? My two primary questions are: will this jive with my subscription, and just pick up with new Quicken file, or will it reload all the old mess? Also, can I ask it to only download account info back to 2017? I don't recall whether there is a way to set parameters back how far to pull, although I feel certain there is, and don't want to zap out everything too quickly. Another option, I mostly use a laptop, but just got a new desktop computer that I will install tonight. I could set up a new Quicken account on the new computer, and get it the way I want before taking old off the laptop, then sync the two. Trouble is, will my subscription allow me to open another Quicken account, say Quicken2, on another computer? Or am I really off in the weeds?

splasher

Your financial information is in a data file, not the program. All you have to do is start a new data file (File menu).

As far as the new computer goes, there is no problem with installing your current Quicken subscription on as many computers in your household as you want. They will all use the same subscription license.

Note, there is only one way to "sync" the information between the computers and that is by copying the data file back and forth between them, there is NO process in Quicken to sync the changes in one data file to another data file, so copying the file is it.

acorgihouse

OK, sure, I know you backup the data file and copy to the other computer. I've been using Quicken about as long as you have, until the past 4-5 years when I just lost track. I am using Win 11 with Quicken Classic Premier. I went back and looked, I've reconciled all my accounts (at the time) up to late 2018, so it is the past five and a half years that needs updating. It appears that, since I last did an update, a lot of my account institutions have implemented things that require I do some amending of the update creds. I have a huge external storage drive, so room to keep those decades of archived stuff. Starting to think best is to get everything updating correctly, spend a long weekend reconciling everything to current, and deleting accounts that no longer exist, and go from there. I appreciate the help, and any other opinions out there, especially if anyone has had similar problem. Learning experience, won't let it get away from me again. I have always liked Quicken, from the beginning, and want to clean up my sloppy habits!