Delete dropdown payee list

tdubnicka

Hello, I have cleaned out memorized payee list but can't figure out how to delete the prior transactions with that payee when clicking or starting to enter on the "Payee" field. I have restarted but this has been going on for some quite time (I don't know how long). Does anyone know how to delete this list and prevent it from repopulating (Quicken is using this list to populate category and memo from the old transactions to new transactions that are downloaded rather than leaving these fields blank). I understand why this list is valuable if you are entering transactions, but it is not valuable for downloaded transactions as the information can be incorrect. I am using Quicken Classic for Windows

Thanks, Tom

UKR

If you primarily rely on downloaded transactions to fill your account registers, you may want to review and experiment with the settings in Edit / Preferences / Data Entry & Quickfill.

Try turning off one or more of the highlighted settings, to see which combination of settings works best for you.

For me, when I'm doing manual transaction entry, the above settings work best.

While the Preferences view is open, clicking on the blue question mark button will open a Help screen which explains the settings in more detail.

tdubnicka

Thanks! I turned off several of these and the list doesn't automatically pop up but it is still there. I'll have to see what happens next time I have transactions to download. Sure wish there was a way to delete this list.

UKR

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20482520#Comment_20482520

If you're talking about the Memorized Payee List …

To trim the list and keep it in shape please do this:
In Edit / Preferences / Data Entry and Quickfill make sure you have a checkmark at
[√] "Remove memorized payees not used in [xx] months"
and set [xx] to something like "3". Do not set it to zero.
Restart Quicken for the change to take effect and housekeeping to clean up the Memorized Payee List and keep cleaning it as time passes.

tdubnicka

Thanks again!

mmpunch

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20482525#Comment_20482525

Thanks for the info, I just changed mine from 24 to 18 months, restarted Quicken but still have a Memorized Transaction last used in 2020. I thought maybe because the Lock was checked, so I unchecked it, restarted Quicken, but the transaction is still memorized.

UKR

Well, that's how it's supposed to work in theory.
This may also depend on the existence or not of old register transactions for the old payee name.
I can't find any documentation about the inner workings of the MPL, so everything is based on observation plus some guesswork.

Give it some time and see if the entries go away by themselves. Worst case, delete the top offenders manually.

tdubnicka

How do you delete them manually? I don't see how to do that?

UKR

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20482732#Comment_20482732

The Memorized Payee List view has a Delete button at the lower right hand corner of the view. Click to select an entry and then click the Delete button.

You can also click to select one MPL entry and buttons Edit and Delete will pop up at the right hand side of the entry line.
You can Ctrl-click several individual entries to select them or you can block-select a whole block of transactions (click the first entry, Shift-click the last entry in the block).
Once highlighted, click the Delete button in one of the highlighted entries and confirm to "… delete [x] items".

Easy peasy, but beware: There's no Undo button if you delete too many entries that you didn't want to delete.

tdubnicka

okay sorry I thought you were referring to the Payee portion of the expense entry. I don't have any memorized payees but they still show up. I'll wait to see if they depopulate over time.

mmpunch

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20482736#Comment_20482736

Yes, that’s how I have cleaned up the Memorized Transactions in the past, but way too time consuming.