Main File Name & Location

[Buddha Buck]

On Mon, Nov 11, 2013 at 5:05 PM, Bill Edelman <bill at billedelman.com> wrote:

> Two part question / clarification.
>
> 1. The main file name (and subsequently the backup files) have been growing
> longer.  What?, you say?
>
> I created the file name IAIE Finances when I setup the software (only using
> gnucash for a single entity) and as expected gnucash appended that name
> with
> ".gnucash.[date & time]".  So what am I doing to cause gnucash to randomly
> append that again on the tail end of a main file..  and more than once.
>
> Here's the current name of the main file:
> IAIE Finances -
> .gnucash.20131029174105.gnucash.20131101131004.gnucash.20131105124444
>

The main file name is the name of whatever gnucash file you open.  The
dated .gnucash files are backups.

If you open the file "IAIE Finances.gnucash", GnuCash will create a backup
file with the name "IAIE Finances.gnucash.20131111171134.gnucash".  If you
then (incorrectly) treat the backup file as the "main file", you'll get
"IAIE Finances.gnucash.20131111171134.gnucash.20131111181245.gnucash", and
you'll go insane as the file names get longer and longer.  And you might
notice a missing transaction or two along the way.

To avoid this, always open the "IAIE Finances.gnucash" file, with no dated
extensions.  You'll get files with dated extensions, but they are backups
and can be ignored until something goes wrong.


> 2. I want gnucash to save the main (and by definition, the log, lock and
> backup files) in a folder that I create in Dropbox on my PC.  This is to
> provide an automatic off-site backup of these files.
>
> Do I simply copy the existing files to the new folder, launch gnucash, and
> open the most recent main file from there?  After gnucash opens the main
> filet there once, will it continue to use the new location going forward?
> I've read the Guide Basics Backup and that was what it seemed to suggest.
>

That's what works for me.  I also double-click the gnucash file in my
DropBox folder to start GnuCash, and that works.