How to stop Quicken from saving everything to OneDrive?

Walter Boomsma

Recently purchased a new Windows Laptop (Surface Pro 9) and successfully moved Quicken to it. However, everything is being saved to the cloud (One Drive). I'd like to move everything to the laptop itself because I will not be using more than one computer. Is it a simple matter of creating a backup, moving the backup file to the new location (C drive on laptop), then clicking that back up file to start Quicken?

Chris_QPW

@volvogirl said "Quicken makes all automatic backups to a subfolder named "BACKUP" in the same folder where your Quicken data resides. So if you have data files in separate folders then each folder will have a separate Backup subfolder."

This has changed in Quicken Subscription. The user can now control where the automatic backups will be placed.

Let me state a few things that might clear up a few things.

The default location for Quicken datafile, which has a type of .QDF is in your Documents\Quicken folder. But the thing to understand is when you activate OneDrive to "backup your files" which is pretty much the default on a new Windows computer, Windows moves your "default Documents folder location" to C:\Users\USERNAME\OneDrive\Documents. Programs opening your "Documents folder" don't use an absolute path they ask Windows where the Documents folder is and go from there.

So, yes if you don't want your Quicken data file in OneDrive then you will have to move it out of your "Documents folder" (or turn off OneDrive backing up your Documents, Pictures, Video folders). Where to move it to so that it is not in OneDrive is up to you. I personally just created C:\Quicken and put it there (with Windows File Explorer, and then double click on the new location/file to open it in Quicken and let it know where it is)

If you don't change the default, I posted above the automatic backups will go to a BACKUP folder wherever your data file like it did in the past.

And of course, the manual backup asks for a location.

Even though you don't have multiple computers you might still want the backups to be stored in a OneDrive folder so that you have them even if the computer crashes.

NotACPA

Yep, it's that simple. Just remove your Q data file from any folder being monitored by OneDrive.

Walter Boomsma

Wow… one clarification. My plan was to create a backup, move the backup file to the C Drive, not just the Q data file. Just confirming that's correct?

Once I've done that, I plan to remove all the Quicken Files from One Drive.

Thanks!

volvogirl

There are 2 kinds of Backups in Quicken, Manual and Automatic. For Manual Backups you can tell it where to put the backup file and if you want to add the current date to the end of the name or to overwrite any existing backup file. If you add the date to the end of the name over time you will end up with a lot of files.

In addition to any manual backups you make, Quicken makes an automatic backup after so many times (which you can set). Quicken makes all automatic backups to a subfolder named "BACKUP" in the same folder where your Quicken data resides. So if you have data files in separate folders then each folder will have a separate Backup subfolder.

Walter Boomsma

Yes, I understand the backup process, thanks. My question was whether to use the Q Data File or a Backup File to move the location where Quicken stores data.

retird

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7952594/how-to-stop-quicken-from-saving-everything-to-one-drive

So you activated One Drive on the new computer…..

I have 2 recent computers but NEVER enabled One Drive… both computers show a local folder named One Drive…. lots of files and folders there…. but One Drive in the cloud hasn't been activated….

So…. might make sure what you are deleting and from where… 😊

Q97

Just move your Quicken .QDF file to a local folder and open it.

volvogirl

Your main file ends in .qdf. It usually is in C:\Users\{your name}\Documents\Quicken folder. So move your actual current .QDF file there. You can make a Quicken folder under Documents.

Chris_QPW

@volvogirl said "Quicken makes all automatic backups to a subfolder named "BACKUP" in the same folder where your Quicken data resides. So if you have data files in separate folders then each folder will have a separate Backup subfolder."

This has changed in Quicken Subscription. The user can now control where the automatic backups will be placed.

Let me state a few things that might clear up a few things.

The default location for Quicken datafile, which has a type of .QDF is in your Documents\Quicken folder. But the thing to understand is when you activate OneDrive to "backup your files" which is pretty much the default on a new Windows computer, Windows moves your "default Documents folder location" to C:\Users\USERNAME\OneDrive\Documents. Programs opening your "Documents folder" don't use an absolute path they ask Windows where the Documents folder is and go from there.

So, yes if you don't want your Quicken data file in OneDrive then you will have to move it out of your "Documents folder" (or turn off OneDrive backing up your Documents, Pictures, Video folders). Where to move it to so that it is not in OneDrive is up to you. I personally just created C:\Quicken and put it there (with Windows File Explorer, and then double click on the new location/file to open it in Quicken and let it know where it is)

If you don't change the default, I posted above the automatic backups will go to a BACKUP folder wherever your data file like it did in the past.

And of course, the manual backup asks for a location.

Even though you don't have multiple computers you might still want the backups to be stored in a OneDrive folder so that you have them even if the computer crashes.

Walter Boomsma

Thanks, everyone! I now have a much better understanding of how this works! It turns out the problem I was having was not simply a Quicken problem—it was a OneDrive problem. Microsoft continues to "force" the use of OneDrive, and, in my case, everything was going to the "wrong" drive, which did not have sufficient capacity. All is well now!