Reset Mac Window Size & Position to Default?

alexjohnson

Very micro question! On another forum there's a discussion with fellow obsessive-compulsives about how to restore the Mac's windows to their "out of the box" defaults, and I am curious how to do this in Quicken. (Please note: I am not asking how to move or resize a Mac window!) At its most basic it involves deleting a file such as ~/Library/Preferences/com.quicken.Quicken.plist; there are terminal commands to locate and delete the NSWindowFrame key.

I can follow instructions but am no Unix programmer, but I think I have worked out the window size and positioning data lives in the [filename].quicken file as deleting ~/Library/Preferences/com.quicken.Quicken.plist causes Quicken to lose the file location, but on being shown where the save file is, the app occupies the same space in the screen as previously. I have opened the container but nothing is leaping off the page as it were to edit or delete; conversely there are some pretty clear third rails.

Does anyone know how to restore Quicken's window position and relative size to the "new file" default, without destroying other data in the process? It has occurred to me I can create a new file, screenshot it and use that screenshot as the desktop, and then overlay my file on top of that template resizing the window manually. That would work I guess, but at another level be deeply unsatisfying…!

jacobs

I believe you are correct the window position is stored within the data file. That's because one can have multiple data files, and you can position windows differently for each data file.

I suppose your could export your data as a QXF file, create a new Quicken file and import your data from the QXF file. While that would restore your transactions but no window positions/sides, you'd also lose any saved reports, attachments (if you have any), and other preference settings. I normally recommend doing this only as a last resort when someone has a file problem which no other troubleshooting seems to fix.

I guess my question is: why do you care about restoring windows to their like-new default positions? All windows other than the main Quicken Mac window are ancillary. What would be the significance or usefulness of being able to restore a window like Categories, Payees, or a report, to its original position and size? (I do understand certain obsessive-compulsiveness with regard to neat window arrangements 😉, but I can't envision how restoring default positions to Quicken Mac windows would be at all useful. What am I missing?)