Archiving old transactions
Is there a way to archive old transactions at year's end? I know that at the top of the register, I can limit what a register will show, but my file is getting quite large. I have transactions going back to 2022. I would like to remove reconciled transactions and clear anything cleared before Jan 1, 2026. Is there a way of doing this without affecting balances?
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1 Posted by dwg on 15 Feb, 2026 09:34 PM
There is no way to archive data.
Archiving was removed from Moneydance over a decade ago because of the impact it had on data and especially Investment data, which cannot be archived based on date.
Archiving was found to damage the integrity of the data.
2 Posted by dtd on 15 Feb, 2026 11:51 PM
If you want to shrink your database, you can use the toolbox extension, and the shrink database under advanced options. use 1 for days to keep.
As for any concerns about large, i (and others) have datasets with info going back into the 19xx period. I personally have over 35 years of data with no impact on speed.
3 Posted by LarryCL on 16 Feb, 2026 03:06 AM
This comment was split into a new private discussion: Archiving old transactions
I'll preface this comment with: I am aware that @dwg & @dtd are just volunteer users and are not part of IK's official staff. And I am extremely appreciative of the volunteer support they provide.
That being said, I'd like to see an archiving feature as well. I have been using Moneydance for 15+ years or so, and time and time again people keep asking for the ability to archive old transactions. And they keep getting the same answers: "It's hard because Moneydance is a double entry accounting system." Or, they get a gaslighting reply along the lines of "You don't need to do that because...."
Honestly, this is frustrating. Are you telling me that multi-million dollar corporations never close their books? I'm sure they do, and I'm sure Moneydance could do this as well with some straightforward software development.
Even if its the case that a "large" moneydance file doesn't affect performance (which by my own experience, I would disagree with), it's nevertheless a completely valid use case for someone to say "I want to clear out old transactions".
I truly don't understand why it would be so hard to simply have some code that goes through every account, finds the balance as of the desired date, deletes the old transactions, and simply sets the balance to that amount.
Yes, this would be a bit trickier with investment data, but there's no reason old transactions for a given security could not be summarized up into one single "BUY" transaction as of the cut off date.
Apologies if this post comes off as a rant; that's not my intention. It's just that I am tired of this very valid feature request being waved off time and time again.
4 Posted by michael.buro on 18 Feb, 2026 03:26 PM
I too would like to ability to archive old transactions. It helps to keep me organized.
5 Posted by michael.buro on 18 Feb, 2026 03:32 PM
Here is something I just tried and it seems to work.
1. Select Export to Backup
2. Delete old transactions
If need be you can always Restore From Backup
Now I just use Moneydance to manage a checking account nothing fancy, but this seems to be an answer for me.
6 Posted by Stuart Beesley ... on 18 Feb, 2026 04:15 PM
If you want to do that you can use toolbox clone dataset.