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Setting up back-up schedule in the new online back-up system

MaryLRB

I am using Quicken Mac Deluxe 6.12.7 on macOS 10.13.6. I just signed up for the new online back-up option but can't figure out how to use it.

The instructions say there will be small green icon at the top of my Q window. There isn't one.
They also tell me to go to Settings in the Q menu. I have no such option.
I also tried to follow the directions for backing up to DropBox by saving my current file to the DropBox folder on my Mac. I can find the file there but it doesn't appear when I open DropBox online. (I do have Sync turned on.

What am I missing? Did something not download to my program or attach to my online account? I'd love to set up automatic online backups but so far I'm just frustrated. I will be grateful for any help and/or advice.

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smayer97

(I'm not going to address the DropBox question because I don't personally use DropBox and don't want to provide incomplete or inaccurate information.)

That is why I have not answered it either.

jacobs

@smayer97 You're right. After all the messages in the thread about Online Backup, I didn't go back to read the original post's mention of DropBox.

(I'm not going to address the DropBox question because I don't personally use DropBox and don't want to provide incomplete or inaccurate information.)

smayer97

@jacobs wrote:

@smayer97 You're correct, that people can back up to Dropbox, if they have such an account. It's just not the question which was asked here, by a user who had signed up for the new Quicken online backup service and found herself unable to use it.

You might want to re-read the OP. Although the primary question is:

I just signed up for the new online back-up option but can't figure out how to use it.

there is also:

3. I also tried to follow the directions for backing up to DropBox by saving my current file to the DropBox folder on my Mac. I can find the file there but it doesn't appear when I open DropBox online. (I do have Sync turned on.

So though the reason for the new Online Backup service not working has been sorted out, the issue with and implied question about her backup to Dropbox has not.

jacobs

@MaryLRB I understand what you're saying. I'll just say that I don't think it's that the reports in Quicken Mac are more "powerful" than those in Quicken 2007, they're just different. Any time we have to learn a new way of doing something we know quite well, it can be a struggle — and that's at any age. 😉 I suspect that once you learn and master how to configure reports in Quicken Mac to get the information you need, you'd find them capable of meeting your needs for your taxes.

One more thought I'll leave you to consider. You note your age as one of the impediments to committing fully to Quicken Mac. But if you need to make that switch in 2 or 3 or 5 years, do you think it will become any easier as you become older? Might it be better to push yourself now to ask questions and learn what you need to about Quicken Mac in order for it to replace Quicken 2007 for you? Or do you want to gamble that Quicken 2007 will remain functional for you as long as you need to manage your finances? I can't answer that for you. Only you know your needs and your capacity for making change, so I'm only suggesting you consider it from the angle of "do I want to push this down the road and potentially have to tackle this transition in a few years if/when I need to replace my Mac?"

Best wishes, whatever path you take going forward! 😀

MaryLRB

@jacobs I forgot to say that I'm running both versions as a safety precaution, but I check QM Deluxe against QM 2007 for accuracy. If there are problems, they are almost always in Deluxe, not 2007. 😉

MaryLRB

@jacobs, thank you for your informative analysis of what may have gone wrong with my QM Deluxe report. I actually think my failure was due to user error: I suspect I didn't get the report parameters correct, though I tried several times. Which was the point of my example. QM 2007 reports are so easy to construct. They may not be as "powerful" as those you can get in QM Deluxe, but what good is power if you can't figure out how to construct the report to get an outcome you can trust? I rely on Quicken reports especially when doing taxes for our small business and I simply don't trust QM Deluxe to produce accurate ones.

I also appreciate your thoughtful and sympathetic comments on QM 2007. I remember going through the convoluted data conversion process when I first subscribed to QM Deluxe a few years ago but I hadn't thought about the issue of maintaining that special server. I'm aware that at some point I will probably be forced to use a newer macOS and that the upgrade will probably also force me to abandon QM 2007. In the meantime I'm making the most of it. I'm almost 77. I guess I'm betting (hoping?) that by that time I won't be worrying about money and budgets anymore. 😊

Meanwhile I rely on this community to bail me out occasionally. You've never let me down.

jacobs

For example, today I tried to run a Report in Deluxe to confirm some entries that I know are there. It couldn't find them

That doesn't sound right; I don't know of any data failures in reports in modern Quicken Mac. EXCEPT… if you are using one of the old reports from the 2010 predecessor to the current Quicken Mac which is deprecated and supposed to be removed from the program, yet for some reason still remains. Specifically: the old Category Summary report (found under Reports > Other Reports). It is known to have some issues which can cause data to be omitted from reports.

The only other issue with reports not producing expected results can happen due to another hangover problem from the old predecessor code which is also supposed to be changed but hasn't been: if you have any transactions in which you have applied a Transfer account AND a category. This is a no-no for a number of reasons, and Quicken Mac blocks you from doing it in some but not all cases. (It depends which order you enter those fields.) Bottom line: transfer transactions should not have categories (and visa versa). If you want to see transfer in a report for cash flow purposes, you can configure reports to include selected transfers using an option in the Advanced tab of Edit Reports. I won't go into an explanation of that here because I don't know if it's an issue for you — but it's generally a solvable issue once you knowhow to set things up.

I understand hanging on to Quicken 2007; I hung on for a long time, too, even though I was testing and using modern Quicken Mac in parallel for a number of years. I finally decided a few years ago that modern Quicken Mac had progressed enough to meet my needs, and I'm happy to say that after some transition muscle memory pains, I never really looked back. There are still a few features from Quicken 2007 which I miss in modern Quicken Mac, but overall I'm much happier being on the new software. I don't miss the crashes and periodic file corruption in Quicken 2007, or the need to delete or split some of my old data because I hit the maximum number of transactions in Quicken 2007; no such issues in modern Quicken Mac. 😀

As you say, you can continue using Quicken 2007 until your current Mac dies (or even longer if you want to jump through the hoops of installing virtual machine software on a new Mac and then installing an older Mac operating system and Quicken 2007). The one concern I'd have is that at some point in the future, I'd expect Quicken will shut down the server which converts Quicken 2007 files into the modern Quicken Mac database. They can monitor how many people are still using Quicken 2007, and how many data conversions are still being processed. At some point — and I have no knowledge or insight whether that might be mere months or many years away — I'd expect them to say the base of users still hanging onto Quicken Mac 2007 is small enough that it no longer justifies maintaining the conversion code in the program and the conversion server. (Or something will break, and they decide it's not worth fixing after having given users many years to update.) If you're truly running both programs in parallel and have your data up to date in modern Quicken Mac, even though it's a number of versions behind, then you've got your bases covered in case the path to convert from Quicken 2007 becomes broken.

MaryLRB

@jacobs Ok, I will confess that the main reason for not upgrading macOS is that I'm still using QM 2007. I'm running it and the newer QM Deluxe side by side just in case 2007 dies, but there are a few features that just work better/easier in 2007. For example, today I tried to run a Report in Deluxe to confirm some entries that I know are there. It couldn't find them, whereas reports in 2007 are a snap. I just don't need all the bells and whistles of the newer systems, either QM or macOS, so I will run what I'm used to for as long as I can. So far, so good … ☝️ But thanks again for your helpful comments.

jacobs

@smayer97 You're correct, that people can back up to Dropbox, if they have such an account. It's just not the question which was asked here, by a user who had signed up for the new Quicken online backup service and found herself unable to use it.

It's my sense that Quicken created this backup service especially for users who may feel technically challenged by things like locating, managing and using backup files. While there are numerous other ways to safely save short- and long-term backups both locally an in the cloud, this Quicken service is aimed at providing an easy, in-application backup and restore capability for users who may want that ease of use/peace of mind. So called "power users" like you or me are less likely to pay for Quicken's online backup service because we already have our own systems for managing backups of our data securely.

I have sent a note to a moderator to request that the Quicken team responsible for the online backup service to add a minimum operating system and Quicken version requirement to the sign-up page, so that users like Mary don't say "that sounds good to me" and then find themselves unable to use what they have paid for.

smayer97

Though many of the comments seem focused on the new online backup feature, no one is addressing the option about backing up to Dropbox. AFAIK, that should not be dependent on the QMac version.

jacobs

@MaryLRB Yes, if you are running the 7 year-old macOS 10.13 (High Sierra), you cannot run any Quicken version beyond the 20 month-old version 6.12.7. The old version may continue to work for your needs for an indefinite amount of time, but you'll be unable to take advantage of the updates and new features in Quicken. You should be careful about security, since you're running an operating system which is no longer supported by Apple nor patched for discovered security flaws; you may also find that because you can't run the latest versions of Safari or Chrome, your browser(s) may increasingly cease to work with certain secure websites, like some banks/financial institutions.

I do understand holding onto an old operating system, because for a long time, I kept one of my Macs on macOS 10.15 (Mojave) in order to continue running some old 32-bit software which can't run on newer versions of macOS. But I knew I was on borrowed time, and eventually bit the bullet to get my operating system current and found alternatives to my old 32-bit software. If you're not in a position to do so now, I'd encourage you to develop a plan for a definitive time in the future when you can update your macOS, and your Mac if it's 10+ years old and can't be upgraded.

MaryLRB

FYI: I did check for updates but could not update to QMac 7.9.1 without also updating my OS. At least that the message I receive when I tried.

MaryLRB

Thank you all for your helpful responses. I wondered about the OS question but since the online backup information did specify an OS, I gave it a try. I have reasons for not upgrading my OS that I won't go into here, so I guess I will have to ask for a refund.

This community is always a lifesaver. I appreciate that you all were willing to share your expertise.

jacobs

I'm just going by this, which says current macOS version plus two previous versions

That's always been the company line — but it's never been correct in terms of Quicken Mac, which has always supported one or more additional older operating systems. When Apple shipped macOS Sequoia two weeks ago, it didn't suddenly render the previous second-older operating system incompatible. As @Jon says, the Quicken Mac team has always indicated when support for an older operating system will be dropped, and the last macOS to be completely dropped was macOS 10.15 (Catalina) with the release of Quicken Mac 7.4 last November. So the current Quicken Mac should run on macOS 11 and newer.

That said, although Quicken will run, some of its newest features may not. So I'm not sure the online backup service will work for someone running macOS 11 and Quicken Mac 7.9.1. But it certainly won't run on the Quicken Mac 6.12.7 which is more than two years old.

RickO

I'm just going by this, which says current macOS version plus two previous versions:

https://www.quicken.com/system-requirements/mac

While 11 or 12 might work right now, they could break at any time with no recourse other than to upgrade the macOS version.

Jon

@RickO The last release notes to mention Mac OS requirements were when 7.4 came out, they said that 12+ was recommended (which would have been 2 versions old at the time) but that it required 11 or later. If they had entirely dropped support for 11 or 12 I would have expected them to say something in later release notes but I’m not seeing anything. And if the backup service feature requires a specific version of Mac OS I’m not seeing that anywhere.

If OP can update to 13 I would certainly recommend that, but if they can only do 11 or 12 I would feel relatively confident that would still work.

Jon

You need to update your Quicken software to use the backup service. The current version is 7.9.1 and the online backup service isn’t available in anything prior to that. Unfortunately you can’t update to a newer version of Quicken without first upgrading to a newer version of Mac OS; the current version of Quicken requires at least Big Sur (Mac OS 11). If your Mac can’t upgrade past Mac OS 10.13 then I don’t think you’ll be able to use the backup service. In that case you should contact customer support for a refund.

RickO

My guess is because you're using an outdated version of QMac. The current version is 7.9.1. This will run on macOS 13. But I'd recommend you update your macOS if possible for better security.

If your subscription is current, click menu Quicken > Check for Updates to update to v7.9.1.

EDIT: I misread your macOS version.

QMac is only guaranteed to run on the current macOS version (v15.0) and two prior versions. So technically you need macOS v13.x to run current QMac. Jon (below) states that QMac will run on macOS 11.x. That may be true, but it would not be officially supported.