Why are BACKUPS stored on Internal HD?

I'm baffled that Quicken2020 Mac stores the BACKUP folders on my internal HD. I find that very troubling because if anything happens to that intenal HD...there go my BACKUPS! But also, they are stored buried in the LIBRARY/APPLICATION SUPPORT/BACKUPS. UGH. This App is so very PC and so not MAC. Why can't I store my BACKUP on an EXTERNAL HD? When I did try to do that I got some message that the data file was missing. (?) Please, someone help me make another BACKUP to an EXTERNAL HD for practical reasons. I feel I need this especially due tot he fact that when I upgraded to Quicken 2020 it would NOT import any of my ESSENTIAL files and I lost 10 years of financials. Even after contacting support they were no help in retrieving any files, even from multiple backup copies I had.

Any help appreciated to do a BACKUP COPY on an external HD!
Thank you :-)

Best Answer

Answers

  • jacobs
    jacobs SuperUser, Mac Beta Beta
    Backups can be stored wherever you want them. Simply go to Preferences > General and click the Backup Folder button to set your preferred destination for backup files.
    Quicken Mac Subscription • Quicken user since 1993
  • macbero
    macbero Member
    jacobs...THANKS for this but it doesn't work. I've changed the BACKUP location using PREFERENCES as you suggested and I get nothing :-(
  • jacobs
    jacobs SuperUser, Mac Beta Beta
    It does work in general. I've moved mine to a different location; some people back up to external drives and even to cloud services.

    What happens when you select a folder on your external drive? Do you get any error message? How is your external hard drive formatted? If you change to another location on your internal drive, does it work? What version of macOS are you running? There's something about your set-up that is causing whatever problem you're encountering, so it's just a matter of hunting it down.
    Quicken Mac Subscription • Quicken user since 1993
  • macbero
    macbero Member
    I successfully get the PREFERENCES dialog box to change the SAVE location and I select the External HD where I want the backup to go. But when I check the folder for the BACKUP file on the external HD there's nothing in it. The External HD is a RAID drive where I'm also saving the Quicken file. I don't want to have a BACKUP on my INTERNAL HD. So even if that worked, it wouldn''t be of any use.

    (I'm guess the issue is that I upgraded by a freak accident to MAC OS CATALINA , which was a BIG mistake.)

    The only way to get a BACKUP to save to a folder on the External HD is to save it FILE>MAKE A BACKUP> (selected Backup Folder on External HD). As long as this method works, I'll use this. But it seems a safer bet to just have the BACKUP file created automatically when I quit Quicken, the way its designed to work :-)

    I'm also very concerned that Quicken2020 could not open ANY other backup files I had tried to open that were created from Quicken Essentials. So I have a fear it could also have issues opening it's own Q2020 Backups.

    I find it frustrating that Q2020 does give you the option to import and/or open QE files and the all you get is an empty register file. I lost 10 years of financial data because of this issue. Q2020 tech support was of no help and blamed it on the 32-bit vs 64-bit difference between the two Mac OS's I was using. If Q2020 won't open a QE file THAT should not even be an option in the dialog box.

    Thanks for your help. If you have any other ideas to do the auto backup on the EHD I'm all ears :-)
This discussion has been closed.