Why double backup when quitting Quicken Classic for Mac?

saherrera

I opted for the paid backup in Quicken Classic for Mac. (I have the latest release, 7.10.1.)

I backup to my Mac using the new ^B command. Then I use the green backup circle in the upper left corner and then quit with ⌘Q. At that time, the program is still open but grayed and the "backup occurring popup" appears.

At this point, I usually go to a different app and the Quicken icon in the dock starts blinking at me. I go back to Quicken and the popup looks like it has paused and then restarts.

When the popup shows that the backup has completed, then the program disappears and the "backup occurring popup" reappears. When that backup is finished, the popup disappears for good.

Is the program really backing up twice upon the Quit command?
Where is/are the/these backup(s)?
Where is the backup circle backing up?

Thanks!

Jon

In Quicken Settings on the Backup tab there are options to create both local backups and online backups automatically when you exit Quicken. If either of those is enabled, then the corresponding backup will occur any time you make changes to your Quicken data & then exit, so you don't have to manually command that backup. I would suggest turning both of them on so you don't have to manually command any backups in the future, but if you have a large Quicken file that takes a long time to upload you might want to leave the online backups on manual & perform them less frequently.

As for where local backup files are stored, the default location is in the Library/Application Support/Quicken/Backups folder in your home directory. You can change that in Quicken Settings. If you can't see the Library folder in the Finder (it's hidden by default) then open a Finder window showing your home directory, hold down the Option key and click on the Go menu in the Finder, and the Library folder should appear in the list.

jacobs

If you manually trigger a backup and then quit Quicken, it would generate two backups.

I'm not currently using the Online Backup service, but I did use it for several months when it was in testing.

I'm not familiar with the Control-B command you reference. In my Quicken, the File > Save a Backup command does not have a command key shortcut. Maybe it adds something when you have subscribed to Online Backup?

In any case, I'm unclear why you're manually starting a backup, then going to the green icon in the upper right, before you quit. Normally, you would set Quicken to automatically backup upon quitting (in Settings > Backup). Then you would just quit Quicken to generate a backup. Alternatively, if you want to control when backups are generated, you would turn off automatic backups upon quitting in Settings, and then manually generate a backup from the File menu or the green backup icon whenever you wish. So it might help if you could clarify your backup settings and why you're manually generating a backup in two different places.

Also, keep in mind that Quicken can (and should be) still generating the local backups it has already done. This is controlled in the same places as the online backups. For most users, local backups take place in just a second or two. If you have your Settings configured to generate both local backups and online backups upon quitting, Quicken will create the manual backup first, then the online backup. Unless you have a massive data file (because of many store attachments), the local backup happens quite quickly while the online backup takes longer, depending on the speed of your Internet upload speed.

Online backups are stored in Quicken's Cloud service. I believe Quicken uses Amazon's S3 (Simple Storage Service), but this is completely hidden from users; they could switch to Google Cloud Storage or Microsoft Azure for storage, and users wouldn't notice the change. There's no choice of folders or locations; there's just your private repository of up to 10 backups per data file.

Local backups are stored in whatever folder you designate on your hard drive. By default, Quicken uses a folder in your User/Application Services/Quicken folder, but you can change the location in Settings. Notably, some users specify a backup folder location which lives on Dropbox or iCloud, so they get the benefit of offsite backup.

Hopefully this answers a few of your questions; post back with more information, and we can hopefully answer the rest of 'em.

Jon

In Quicken Settings on the Backup tab there are options to create both local backups and online backups automatically when you exit Quicken. If either of those is enabled, then the corresponding backup will occur any time you make changes to your Quicken data & then exit, so you don't have to manually command that backup. I would suggest turning both of them on so you don't have to manually command any backups in the future, but if you have a large Quicken file that takes a long time to upload you might want to leave the online backups on manual & perform them less frequently.

As for where local backup files are stored, the default location is in the Library/Application Support/Quicken/Backups folder in your home directory. You can change that in Quicken Settings. If you can't see the Library folder in the Finder (it's hidden by default) then open a Finder window showing your home directory, hold down the Option key and click on the Go menu in the Finder, and the Library folder should appear in the list.

jacobs

If you manually trigger a backup and then quit Quicken, it would generate two backups.

I'm not currently using the Online Backup service, but I did use it for several months when it was in testing.

I'm not familiar with the Control-B command you reference. In my Quicken, the File > Save a Backup command does not have a command key shortcut. Maybe it adds something when you have subscribed to Online Backup?

In any case, I'm unclear why you're manually starting a backup, then going to the green icon in the upper right, before you quit. Normally, you would set Quicken to automatically backup upon quitting (in Settings > Backup). Then you would just quit Quicken to generate a backup. Alternatively, if you want to control when backups are generated, you would turn off automatic backups upon quitting in Settings, and then manually generate a backup from the File menu or the green backup icon whenever you wish. So it might help if you could clarify your backup settings and why you're manually generating a backup in two different places.

Also, keep in mind that Quicken can (and should be) still generating the local backups it has already done. This is controlled in the same places as the online backups. For most users, local backups take place in just a second or two. If you have your Settings configured to generate both local backups and online backups upon quitting, Quicken will create the manual backup first, then the online backup. Unless you have a massive data file (because of many store attachments), the local backup happens quite quickly while the online backup takes longer, depending on the speed of your Internet upload speed.

Online backups are stored in Quicken's Cloud service. I believe Quicken uses Amazon's S3 (Simple Storage Service), but this is completely hidden from users; they could switch to Google Cloud Storage or Microsoft Azure for storage, and users wouldn't notice the change. There's no choice of folders or locations; there's just your private repository of up to 10 backups per data file.

Local backups are stored in whatever folder you designate on your hard drive. By default, Quicken uses a folder in your User/Application Services/Quicken folder, but you can change the location in Settings. Notably, some users specify a backup folder location which lives on Dropbox or iCloud, so they get the benefit of offsite backup.

Hopefully this answers a few of your questions; post back with more information, and we can hopefully answer the rest of 'em.

saherrera

Jon,

Thanks for the quick reply.

I will re-asses my backup needs with your information in mind.

I needed to overly backup when I still had my on-line business.
Needed to protect the customers and me. :)

Guess I am still in that frame of mind.

Thanks again!

saherrera

Jacobs,

Thanks for the quick reply.

Yes, the Control-B command came with the paid backup. I do not like it as it is physically awkward since I tend to keep my right hand on my trackball and have to stretch my left hand fingers to do that command.

I manually backup to a jump drive on my Mac as well as the regular place on my Mac set up by Quicken and now on-line.

As I mentioned to Jon, I still do this out of an excess of caution from when I had an on-line business.

Also, I have had lots of Quicken files go bad over the many years I have used Quicken.
The naming system I use shows that I am now on about file # 40.
But I have had that name of my file for quite a few years now.
Seems like Quicken has improved something!

Thanks!

jacobs

I needed to overly backup when I still had my on-line business.

I'm a big believe that one can never have too many backups! 😉 One advantage of local backups is that you can have as many as you want. I typically set mine to retain the last 50 backups. (Quicken's default is only 5, I think.) This way, even if I open and quit Quicken several times each week, I will have backups going back more than a month. I also periodically trigger a manual backup; these aren't auto-deleted, so I have backups going back months and years until I go in and delete some of them. Quicken backup files typically aren't too large, and drive space is typically plentiful, so why not keep more around just in case a need ever arises to dig further back in time?

By contrast, the online backup service stores only 10 backups per data file. If you open and quit Quicken a lot, you may only have backups going back a few days, or a week or two. In my opinion, that's not far enough back; if you discover a problem with modified/deleted transactions, you may need to access an older backup to fix things. Online backup allows you to Lock any backup, so I definitely suggest locking one or two backups so you insure having something that goes back a month or more. I think Quicken is doing users a disservice by only allowing 10 backups for this paid service; I think they should have at least 20 backups. I brought this up during beta testing, but never received a response; apparently it just doesn't fit their business plan, although I think it could end up harming the very users they've convinced to spend $36/year for the service.

I don't subscribe to the online backup service because I have multiple layers of backup for my Macs. For Quicken, as mentioned above, I have it save the last 50 backups. My entire Mac is backed up daily by Time Machine; a simple tool built into macOS which requires only an inexpensive external hard drive. But because Time Machine doesn't protect me in the event of a fire/flood/tornado or robbery, I also subscribe to iDrive for daily backups of my data to the cloud. iDrive costs more than the Quicken online service, but it backs up all my data — photos, music, documents, etc. And just for good measure, I use an older hard drive to periodically do a full-disk backup using the SuperDuper utility, and I keep that drive offsite. (Why all these backups? I once had a hard drive fail, and two of my backups were unable to fully restore my data when I replaced the drive; I was bailed out when the third worked properly.)