[GNC] Trying to download Gnucash data Files

[Michael Hendry]

> On 11 Apr 2021, at 17:33, Jose A. Lorido III <fhcatares at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> To whomever may be able to help,
> 
> I have been using Gnucash for my business as well as my personal accounting
> on the HDD drive of my laptop. A few weeks ago, my HDD was damaged and
> unfortunately,

I feel your pain, Jose!

> I had not backed up any of my data for the previous 3 years.
> 
> I sent my damaged HDD to SalvageData and they were able to recover a number
> of files, some of these belonging to the Gnucash program.
> 
> The question would be to anyone that may be able to help me is:
> 
> 1) Which files/folders contain my data files (what would be the extensions
> I should look for)?

The folder you want is the folder you chose to use when you first installed Gnucash.

By default, this will be your Documents folder, but you may have chosen to put your files elsewhere.

The most important files are <YourBusiness>.gnucash and <Personal>.gnucash - whatever you have called the books you’re working on.

Gnucash also makes back-ups in files like <YourBusiness>.gnucash.20210407161740.gnucash and maintains logs in files like <YourBusiness>.gnucash.20210407160520.log, which include the date and time in their filenames.

If you can recover the current files (<YourBusiness>.gnucash, and similar) then you’re in luck!

> 
> and
> 
> 2) How would I go about downloading them into my new SSD drive on my
> laptop, or I could also download them to my desktop which also contains the
> Gnucash program?

I suggest you put any recovered files in Documents/Accounts (Documents\Accounts if you’re a Windows user), make backups!, and then open them with Gnucash in the normal way.

Good luck!

Michael Hendry

PS If you have created Custom Reports and saved them, they’ll be in a file called “saved-reports-2.8”, stored in a folder which depends on your operating system