Saving Backups

Question

I have quicken set to automatically a backup every 5 times it is used and to keep a maximum of 5 backups.

The backups are created correctly but Quicken seems to ignore the maximum number of backup.  The last time I checked I had over 20 backups on my hard drive.

Is there a way to correct this issue?

neil154 · Answer

Thanks for such a complete response.  I will delete all backups (have them on USB drive just in case) and see if it works crrectly

nmestanas · Answer

Did you reduce the max number of backups at some point prior?  Like from 20 to 5?

I have mine normally set to 20 and 20 it keeps.  I then changed the number to 5.  Then opened/closed Q to trigger the auto backup.  The auto backup worked but it did not purge the previous backups (so now I had 25).  I then emptied the backup folder (moved the files elsewhere) and repeated the open/close process.  It then saved the correct number.

So to correct it just empty the backup folder (or whatever folder you configured) and start over.  Of course, don't delete the files for now, just move to a different location.  Once your sure it's saving properly, then delete the old ones.

What I found odd was it did "cycle" through the 5. So the first auto backup after the change, left me with 21.  The next, 22 and so on until I reached 25 total.  It then deleted #21. One more loop and it deleted #22 and so on.  It just never deleted the ones created before the change in setting.

Another odd thing.  Since the auto backup includes the date/time in the file name (qdata-2025-01-16AM07.44.QDF-backup), it will not create a new backup file if you quickly open/close Quicken, trigger a backup, and your clock has not ticked over to the next minute.  While I was testing, I set the interval to 1 so it would create a backup every time.  So if I opened/closed at 7:44:10 (10 seconds), I'd get a backup file.  If I quickly opened and closed at 7:44:45 (45 seconds), no new file was created since they have the same.  If I waited until 7:45, a new file is born.  There was no warning about overwrite so I can't tell if it skipped or overwrote the file.  No matter, as there were no changes.  In normal use no one would do this so it's not an issue.  I just thought it was interesting,

neil154 · Answer

The name of the fie is "QuickenData 9-5-24" without the time and according to you that should be okay