Accessing Quicken 2004 files? (Q Mac)

Henry, you have a bit of a challenge to open those Quicken Mac 2004 data files. First, there is no way to pull useful information from them other than using Quicken; the database used in the old legacy Quicken Mac does not allow for using other utilities or programs to extract meaningful data.

So needing Quicken, what's the path forward? As you've discovered, the current Quicken Mac cannot import Quicken 2004 data files; it can only import Quicken 2007 data files. So you will need to need to obtain or get access to:

1. an older Mac running an operating system up to but not beyond Snow Leopard (10.6.8), because only Macs running Snow Leopard or earlier will be able to run…
2. a copy of Quicken 2004, Quicken 2005, Quicken 2006, or Quicken 2007 (but only the original 16.0.x version, and not the upgraded 16.1.x or 16.2.x version).

Any of those specific old versions of Quicken Mac should be able to open the Quicken 2004 data files. If you just need to view the data, then any of those will be fine. If you want to maintain access to the data by getting it into the current Quicken, you will specifically need to Quicken 2007 (original 16.0.x version) to update the Quicken 2004 data; once the data is in Quicken 2007 format, you will be able to import it into current Quicken Mac.

Macs old enough to run Snow Leopard are not plentiful on the used market because of their age, but with some hunting, you will be likely be able to find one. Finding the old Quicken Mac software is more of a challenge, but if you locate a Mac to run it, post back here and perhaps someone will be able to help point you to where you can obtain a copy of Quicken 2007 16.0.