Attachments - Quicken 2019 for the Mac
I need to start saving a significant number of receipts- things you typically wouldn't. So I was considering using the attachment feature in Quicken. Is anyone using this feature fully/to the extreme? Where are the files stored? Are they objects in the database and my database will be bloated? Or, are they links to the file system? Does Quicken start slowing down with all the attachments? Today, I typically scan the doc via an app on my phone, I upload it to my laptop. The PDF typically ends up in the downloads folder. I attach it to the transaction then delete the file- is this okay. Do I need to worry about naming conventions?
Any thoughts and advice would be welcomed.
Brendan
Any thoughts and advice would be welcomed.
Brendan
0
This discussion has been closed.

Comments
The two Screen Shot files are what I attached to transactions in Quicken. As you can see they are stored like regular files in this folder hierarchy.
Because of this, adding a lot of attachments will bloat the side of your Quicken data file but not the size of your database. It does mean that file backups of your data file will take longer, because all the attachments are being backed up as part of the backup of the data file -- but it won't make Quicken run more slowly otherwise.
The real choice you have is whether you want to store all your attachments inside Quicken's data file or not. There are several advantages: from within Quicken, you can open an attachment in one click; you don't need to fuss with file naming or folders to keep track of them, because the Quicken database maintains the link to the files. That said, some Quicken users prefer to keep all their scanned receipts and PDFs outside Quicken. If your drive is being regularly backed up by Time Machine or a cloud backup service, you don't need the bloat of all your receipts inside each Quicken data file backup. If something goes south with Quicken, you may file it easier to find your receipts if you store them externally, using a folder hierarchy and file naming you can navigate on your own (e.g. 2019 > 01 > Home Depot.pdf)
https://www.quicken.com/support/tell-me-about-attaching-images-transactions-and-accounts
I'm not sure I understand how your Quicken 2019 data file package doesn't have the additional folders. Are you sure you're looking at your live data file? Perhaps someone else here will be able to explain why you don't have the attachments and other folders inside your data file package.
One thing I just discovered: if you create an attachment and then delete the attachment, the transaction no longer shows the attachment icon. I would have assumed it was gone for good. But I see that inside the data file, it created a folder called 'deleted attachments' and moves the attachments there. So even deleting attachments will contribute to the size of your data file. I'm not sure why Quicken would retain them as I can't see how you could access them from within Quicken, nor a way to "empty the trash" of deleted attachments (unless you came in via Show Package contents and then deleted them in the Finder). Again, perhaps someone more familiar with working with attachments can offer more insight...
Somehow my attachments are only going to the Cloud.
I guess we'll see if anyone else has anything to offer.
Thank you for your help.
In one of the related Quicken Help web pages, it explains: "For accounts for which you've enabled mobile and alerts, you can also have one attachment stored in the Quicken Cloud for each transaction. If you are attaching an image to an account for which you've enabled mobile and alerts, Quicken automatically uploads the first image to the cloud." I do not use Quicken mobile & web sync in this file.
Mystery may be solved. Can you look at your package file when you're not in Quicken? I was in Quicken and saw the structure you did. When I closed Quicken they all went away.
Although I've tested it before, I don't normally use password protection on my data file, so I didn't know until looking at it now that this is how Quicken file protection shows itself at the file level. Indeed, when I added a password to my data file, it tells me that the file will be encrypted when not in use:
And indeed, if I have a Finder window showing the package contents, I can see the folders disappear when I quit Quicken and reappear when I relaunch Quicken.
So this brings us back to the original question, and my answer, which still proves true: your attachments live outside your Quicken database, but inside your Quicken data file. If you plan to have a very large number of attachments over time, then this may slightly slow your Quicken launch and quit times, since the data file is being decrypted and encrypted. And the data file may grow quite large, since the attachments are stored within the data file. But it doesn't "bloat" the database itself, and shouldn't cause the operation of Quicken to otherwise slow down.
Thanks again.