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Retaining old files and Backups

SteveTucker79

I have been a Quicken user since like 1993 and have kept old files and backups going back that far and part of me wonders if I should keep these which wrestles with the me who asks why am I keeping these files 'cause we all know Quicken has changed many times overs those 3 some years.

Another question has to do with current backups. I currently am fairly religious about backing up after every four or five sessions. Each backup is taking up about 250 megs of disk space and when you add that to the backups and files going back to 1993….WHEW! What do y'all think. I haven't considered the Quicken Online Backup yet. Seems like a lot of folks are offering online backups these days and it could easily get expensive like steaming.

And while I am at it, just out of curiosity what are the .dat files. I see files like personal_2026_SyncLog.dat, personal_2026_SyncLog1.dat and PERSONAL_2026OFXLOG.DAT. Are these many how quicken keeps up with what I have sync'ed with my banks and brokers?

Enough curiosity for now. Thanks much for any ideas/suggestions

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Comments

Chris_QPW

I have a backup system that does a binary difference of changes and as such I can have backups that go way back and not take up that much space. But if I was looking for "what do I really need", I think I would go with "If I found that X number of backups were corrupted, how far back would I really be willing to recreate?". In other words, my backups go back to September 1, 2018, but I doubt I would ever be willing to recreate more than year to date if I had to. Each person has to decide for themselves, but that is about my cutoff point.

The *.dat files are just scrambled log files. They are scrambled because they might have sensitive information in them. The are temporary file generally only going back a few sessions.

Rocket J Squirrel

Delete the old 1993 files and any nearly that old. Nothing can read them unless you saved ancient QWin programs and hope to reinstall them (bad idea).

Jon

I don't think I have any backups more than 8 or 9 months old. I keep a backup in my safe deposit box but even that gets updated a couple times a year. And I think @Chris_QPW brings up a very good point - the older the backup, the more work it would take to bring it up to date, and at some point it becomes no longer worth it.

jacobs

I don't think there's any reason for keeping files which are 20+ years old, unless you have (a) opened them in more recent software so they can still be opened in today's Quicken, and (b) deleted older data from your "live" data file, such that the old files contain data which is not available in your current file. Otherwise, if it helps you sleep better at night, keep one backup from every year or two going back 10 or so years. 😀 I keep a backup from each year for the past 5 or 6 years, but I'm not sure there's any logical reason for doing so!

I don't see the value in Quicken Online Backup unless you're a technically challenged user who breaks out in a sweat if you see "restore a backup file". If you're going to pay for the safety of cloud-based backups, I think it makes a lot more sense to backup all your data with a backup service like iDrive, BackBlaze, Carbonite, etc.

My backup strategy is to have multiple layers. For Quicken, that starts with using Quicken's built-in backup to generate backups each time I quit the program; I set that to keep 50 backups. Then, as a Mac user, I use the operating system's built-in "Time Machine" to do regular full-disk incremental backups to a hard drive attached to my desktop computer. I use iDrive to do incremental backups of my data to the cloud, as protection against any disaster at my home which might destroy my computer and local backups. I also use a backup utility program (SuperDuper!) to do a full-disk backup to an external hard drive roughly every 6 months , and I rotate two drives so I can keep one off-site at all times.

Jim_Harman

One caveat about using Carbonite for Quicken backups:

I learned some time ago that Carbonite flags QDF files as "sensitive" and will not restore them via their website. I found this out the hard way when I was travelling and tried to access a file that had been backed up by Carbonite.

SteveTucker79

I used to use Carbonite, but switched to iDrive a few years back because it served my needs better. iDrive allows me to back up all of my computers and phones.

Must confess that I have not attempted to restore a QDF file from iDrive, so I tested. iDrive appeared to restore the QDF file.

Thanks for the response…which made me test it!!!!

jacobs

@SteveTucker79 I use iDrive for the same reason you mentioned: one price, multiple devices.
For any Mac users out there, I believe you need to expressly tell iDrive to back up your Quicken folder if you leave it in the default location (in the user Library).

splasher

I'm a packrat when it comes to Quicken backups, but I have the last backup of the calendar year from 1996 to 5 years ago. Between then and 12 months ago, I have the last of each month. After that till current, I have all of them.

I make a backup after any session that I make changes in.

Rocket J Squirrel

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20552089#Comment_20552089

How often have you needed to restore a backup?

splasher

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20552098#Comment_20552098

Because of a Quicken induced problem, once or twice. Because a I did something stupid, a couple times a year or I tested something in my production file and it was easier to restore versus removing a bunch of junk.

Though, my process of restoring is renaming a copy of a backup rather than doing a true Quicken Restore.

I do have installation disks/programs that will read every one of my backups if I needed to inspect them.

Great post and I asked a similar question in 2023 and as a result modified my approach.

For cloud backup, I also use iDrive as mentioned by others (ditto for my parents and in-laws). There is probably no right/wrong answer as to what vendor. But it is important to have a cloud backup of your life in case of a disaster. Think wildfires where every piece of data (computer, backup drives, documents, etc.) will be destroyed if you are unable to grab and run. I am in LA and have friends who lost everything a year ago - insult to injury many of them sadly didn't have cloud backups … memories, important documents all gone 🤒

For Quicken data file backup, I now keep one per month for 6 months and then daily backups for the current month. I backup every time I use Quicken with date stamp. Frankly I would probably not refer back to more than a week or two.

Finally, I use a Virtual Machine environment that is built into Win11 Pro, acting as a test Quicken environment for all of my experiments, so I never mess with my primary Quicken file until I have tested things and therefore it remains pristine.

Chris_QPW

o I never mess with my primary Quicken file until I have tested things and therefore it remains pristine.

One word of caution about this statement. There was a time when this was completely true and I used it to confidentially try out things to try to figure out problems that people have reported on this site. Sadly, that isn't true any more. Your data file is no longer an independent source of data and that is true even if you have isolated everything on your machine like the config files. The other part is what is stored on the Quicken servers.

Unless you use no online feature, then each feature now has some amount of risk for using an older copy of your data file. The older the copy the more the risk.

Both using a copy of your data file and use Quicken's Restore involves a risk, just in a bit of a different form.

When you use Quicken's Restore it is going to do "syncing" and yes that syncing has been known to sync stuff from the Quicken servers overriding data in the Quicken Desktop data file.

When you use a copy of your Quicken Desktop data file you face the opposite problem, the assumption is that the data file and the information on the Quicken server are already in sync, and if the is too far out of sync that can cause problems too.

Usually the problems that are caused are usually too bad if you consider possible needing to setup the online services "not too bad", because that is the most common problem.

@Chris_QPW

Unless you use no online feature, then each feature now has some amount of risk for using an older copy of your data file. The older the copy the more the risk.

Thank you for the word of caution. Yes, my VM is always offline and disconnected; that is where I use a copy of my main Quicken file to determine if I want to make any changes etc. If I need to test an online feature, I use a completely different Quicken test file.

Thanks again.

Chris_QPW

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20552232#Comment_20552232

That is a good strategy.

skeleton567

I use two processes for backup. My home office has a NAS server which provides abour 42tb of space for backups by date. For permanent copies I use DVD-RW which i have read is maybe the best long-term storage. And I do regular backups by just doing a complete drag-and-drop of my C:\ to a new directory on the NAS. Have lost no data in years.

dexmom

I also have Q backups going back 20 years. It would be great if there was a way to view these, as I need to get home improvements going back that far in order to calculate my taxable base for capital gains taxes. I didn't keep my old Q program discs because they wouldn't run on Windows today anyway. Any ideas?

AndrewQ

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20551947#Comment_20551947

I make backups for archival purposes on a separate hard drive once every few years. When I do so, I use the current Quicken program to open all of them. Sometimes it needs to update the the datafiles to the current program level, sometimes not. But ALL of them going back decades CAN be read by the current version when this process is used.

AndrewQ

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7973210/retaining-old-files-and-backups

You're receiving a lot of good replies. You need to determine yourself what you are comfortable with. Personally, I have two external drives (one for manual backups, the other for automated backups using NERO BACKITUP software that does real-time backups), as well as putting a daily encrypted backup in a cloud service.

So saying that, there's an adage I use (YMMV)…"You can't have too many backups". Peruse this….
https://www.kaspersky.com/blog/ransomware-in-dental-data-backup-firm/28755/

Chris_QPW

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20552578#Comment_20552578

I think this might bring up a good point. Every SuperUser would tell you never to spit your data file. Given that one doesn't split their data file then their current data file already has the transactions that a 20 year old data file would have. If you are a person that split up your data file then you might want to keep a lot more backup files for this very purpose. But that also brings up one of the reasons it is recommended not to spilt up your data file. Unless you were willing to go back to those data files and convert them to the new format then it is very possible to get in the position that you might not be able to open your backup data file.

The current history goes like this. Before Quicken 2018 when Quicken Inc took over Quicken Intuit changed the format every year and so older versions of Quicken couldn't open data files created/upgraded by newer versions of Quicken, but were with some exceptions the newer versions of Quicken could open and convert older data files. From Quicken 2018 onward the Quicken can open data files even if they were created by new versions of Quicken.

The exceptions for being able to convert pivots around two points. If the data file was created by a DOS version of Quicken most likely nothing can convert itl After that they stated crossover point is Quicken 2004. In other words the last versions of Quicken can convert all the way back to a Quicken 2004 data file. Quicken 2013 is also provided but in general isn't needed. Quicken 2004 is stated to be able to convert data files back to Quicken 98, but I have converted my Quicken 96 data files with it.

http://www.quicken.com/support/how-and-when-use-intermediate-version-convert-older-versions-quicken/

Ray

I recently created a QXF file of all my accounts in my data file with transactions going back to 2010. I imported it into a new empty file to fix issues with Fidelity and Schwab investment accounts. I had to make a few corrections in the data, but otherwise it was very successful. All I lost were all my custom reports. In recreating them, there are slight differences in the standard report that I customize.

As I understand it, the Quicken program itself in now current instead of having years of updates. Does anyone know what this process does?

Prior to it, I was using a data file with transactions going back to 1997. I periodically open it to verify that I still can. I don't update it. Searches and reports still work. I wonder if I should use QFX again to import its data into a new empty too?

Chris_QPW

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20552661#Comment_20552661

The QXF export/import has nothing to do with the Quicken program itself.

Basically, what you are doing is exporting the data in a new format (different than the one that is in the QDF file) and then importing that into a new QDF file. By simple fact that it changed formats means that it is basically being reconstructed and as such it can clear out certain kinds of problems that might have been hanging around in the old QDF format. It is also possible to introduce new problems.

I will note here that they have made a lot of progress with the QXF export/import, but whether work for any given person well enough to do a complete rebuild really depends on what is in that data file.

Just creating a new data file, even say with Quicken's copy function has the potential of fixing some problems. Each Quicken data file has a unique Id that connects it to the online services. When you create a new data file you get a new unique Id and therefore all the online service data stored in the Quicken Cloud dataset is recreated too.

On the subject of the Quicken program itself. The install for Quicken hasn't been a "patch" in many years. "Patches" basically went away when they changed to only using the "Mondo patch" and even before that just uninstalling and reinstalling would have gotten rid of the "patching layers". The old "standard" patch was a full complete install. What it did differently than the Mondo patch is that with the "standard" patch if it was going to replace a file it would look at the version number and make sure that the version of the file it had was newer and not install it if it wasn't newer. This resulted in a slightly faster install, but if the file was corrupted it would have been replaced. The Mondo install replaces any existing file no matter what.

But I will point out that the Quicken program isn't "self-contained". Some settings are stored in config files or in the Windows registry. When you install Quicken on a new machine of course all of these are created new. When you install Quicken on a machine that already has Quicken on it these are "merged" and as such have the potential of leaving a corrupted configuration/registry setting.

On the registry settings. There used to be a separate program for cleaning out the registry. These days the Quicken uninstall runs that same registry cleaning program. The uninstall doesn't remove all the configuration files though, because it is allowing for the fact that you might reinstall and wouldn't want the preferences that are stored there changed.

And then there is the Quicken Cloud data. That isn't touched at all for any install or uninstall.

splasher

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20552537#Comment_20552537

Sounds good, but what about off-site storage? Ask the folks in California if anything in their homes survived the fires last year or the floods in Texas and Tennessee.

Jon

The old rule I remember about backups is "3 copies, on at least 2 different types of media, one offsite". My offsite backup is in a safe deposit box about 5 miles from home but I've been meaning to set up cloud backup for my main Mac ever since getting fiber internet last summer. I do have my Quicken file backed up to iCloud but should have a more comprehensive setup.

Yeah, as I wrote in an earlier comment that my friends lost everything in the LA fires. Neither were home to grab anything. Couple didn't have any off-site/cloud backup. Another did have a physical drive off-site at the parents house - BUT, the parents lived in the other town 35 miles away that also coincidentally got destroyed by the fires!

I have our entire life digitized, including parents and in-laws and got all of us covered with this backup approach: home + cloud + physical off-site (such as office, family, friends, bank, etc.). All encrypted. The physical off-site one is typically 3 months behind until I swap the drive with an updated one, and hopefully never have to use it.

AndrewQ

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20552885#Comment_20552885

Sounds good! I likewise have things digitized but I do keep paper records for statements and such, and in fact, pay extra to my FIs when needed so they don't cut me off from paper mailings (eg: Vanguard charges $25 per person for the privilege of snail-mailings). The other thing one needs to ensure to do is to DOCUMENT all what is needed to allow your spouse (kids, executor, whoever) to be able to access the records through whatever means is needed (your PC, Quicken app, online bank account apps. knowledge of your directory struction for .doc or .pdfs saved, etc etc etc.). I worry that I did such a good job in digitizing my life than others might not be able to recover what for me is easy to deal with when needed after I'm gone. Thus, my paper records remain intact if needed. Something to think about.