Quicken Mac 7.10 – Can't open file - Due to lack of space

Garry@

I updated from Quicken Mac 7.9.1 to 7.10 today. I used Quicken's update function – i.e. I chose "Check for Updates", I did not download and install myself.

After that, Quicken reported it could open my file. It also reported that my file may already be open on a different computer.

My data file is stored inside an encrypted DMG file. Space available is low. Quicken, however, does not check for available space and so just bangs and error and corrupts the data file.

This has been happening for over 3 years. Can Quicken be fixed to check for available space ?

Thanks.

jacobs

@Garry@ I can't answer whether Quicken could check for available space prior to an update; I don't know if macOS can report to Quicken how much space would be required to decrypt a DMG file without actually decrypting it.

However I have a couple thoughts about things you might want to consider doing differently. If you have so little space on your hard drive that there's not enough free space to open the Quicken data file, you're flirting with other possible problems due to lack of swap space the operating system needs.

It wasn't clear from your post whether the addition of a Quicken update download, plus the backups of both the program and the data file Quicken makes when doing an update is itself the problem, or whether your Quicken data file is in a large encrypted DMG with lots of other data. If the latter, have you considered moving the Quicken data file into its own, separate encrypted DMG file, so opening it doesn't require space for the other things in your existing DMG file to be touched?

But my overriding thought is that if you're so tight on drive space, and it's been this way for three years, is that a small investment in an external hard drive would be well worth it to avoid these problems. For under $100, you could get a 1 TB hard drive or 500 GB solid state drive which would give you lots of breathing room. If you don't already have a drive for Time Machine backups, you could get a 1 or 2 TB drive and partition it so you can use part of the drive for Time Machine backups and part for Quicken and other data (or leave Quicken on your current drive and move less frequently-used data to the external drive).