[GNC] new to Gnucash - help with general information

[David Carlson]

There has been discussion here in the past about how to save backups of the
information that GnuCash saves in other folders.  I do not recall there
being a nice answer for users that wish it was all in one folder.

That information does not change much after the first year or two so
eventually a quarterly manual copy to some backup folder suffices for most
users.



On Sat, Sep 10, 2022, 9:44 PM Gyle McCollam <gmccollam at live.com> wrote:

> Donna,
> I use the same Gnucash, but Windows 11.  1st, let me say that Geoff info
> was helpful. There are several folders on my system for gnucash, but all
> the data and backups reside in gnucash in my documents folder.  There are
> other files associated with gnucash that it puts in other places that I
> would not put in my main data files location.  When you say you have files
> in 3 locations, which files are you referring to?
>
> your questions:
>
>   1.  gnucash saves all data files in one location by default.  This
> includes your main data file, as ????.gnucash.  The log files that Goeff
> mentioned ????.gnucash.datetime.log and the lock file he mentioned
> ????.gnucash.LCK.
>   2.  As long as you didn't delete the ????.gnucash or any newer log files
> you should have been OK, but you probably deleted your current file and
> that is why you lost data.
>   3.  In the "Edit/Preferences/General", there is an Auto Save time
> Interval that you can set for it to create backups and a "Retain
> log/backups" for the number of days to save these backups.  This way it can
> do the deletions for you automatically and you don't have to worry about
> what files you are deleting.
>   4.  As Geoff said it will save the file to the same place it was
> retrieved from, unless you use "save as" and specify a different location.
>   5.  Geoff is also correct here that gnucash saves backup so you don't
> lose data, but backuping up to another media is always a good idea.
>
> Another helpful place to look is in "Help/Tutorial and  Concepts Guide".
> In the search box type "backing up and recovering data" enter and it will
> take you to the page explaining how to restore and helpful information
> about how every thing works.
>
>
> Thank You,
>
> Gyle McCollam
>
> Gyle McCollam
>
> gmccollam at live.com<mailto:gmccollam at gyleshomes.com>           email
>
> ________________________________
> From: gnucash-user <gnucash-user-bounces+gylemc=gmail.com at gnucash.org> on
> behalf of grambo at shaw.ca <grambo at shaw.ca>
> Sent: Saturday, September 10, 2022 2:37 PM
> To: gnucash-user at gnucash.org <gnucash-user at gnucash.org>
> Subject: [GNC] new to Gnucash - help with general information
>
> I am new to Gnucash and have a few questions regarding saving data.  I use
> Windows 10 and Gnucash Version: 4.11 Build ID: 4.11+(2022-06-25)
>
> 1.      I would like to save everything in one folder named Gnucash.  I
> think I will use the xml format.  Currently it seems there are files in
> three different folders.
>                 How do I make sure to save everything to one folder?
>
> 2.      Can I move everything I have (which is in 3 different folders) to a
> folder named Gnucash without harm to the data I have entered.  (I
> previously
> had entered data for 2021, then deleted a bunch of files and most of the
> data disappeared.  The file types were text and gnucash financial data)
>
> 3.      How long do you need to keep the different files?
> Are there certain files needed to keep the data in the Gnucash system?  I
> have looked at the FAQ but still not clear.
>
> 4.      When you click the save button when entering transactions, how do
> you know where it is being saved to?  I'd like it to be saved in Gnucash
> folder, as indicated above.
>
> 5.      Back ups - I have read a lot about the back ups but still unsure
> what to do.  Any suggestions would be appreciated.
>
> Thanks all
> Donna
>
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