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Allow export of all preferences and customizations

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jimrh

28 Jan, 2026 02:04 PM

Greetings!

I am currently attempting a migration from Win-10 to Linux Mint. I have:
1. Installed Moneydance on Linux Mint.
2. Successfully imported my financial dataset.

Unfortunately, there does not seem to be a way to export/migrate my settings, reports, extensions, tools - in other words, those carefully crafted settings and configurations that comprise my workflow.

I understand that, due to the differences between Windows and Linux, it's not a "drag-and-plop" upgrade. What I would like to see is a way to export the "metadata" about a particular Moneydance installation so that the totality of the installed configuration can be migrated to a new installation on a different platform.

Justification:
At the present time Windows 11 has become increasingly unpopular and Windows 10 is no longer a viable alternative as even extended support will end soon. As a result many people are moving away from Windows/Microsoft to other platforms, (Linux/Mac), and they will need to migrate their essential applications. Moneydance is (IMHO) an "essential" application for me.

Additionally, users create their own customizations, tweaks, preferences, installed tools and extensions - in other words they customize Moneydance to their specific and unique needs which are an essential part of their installation and workflow.

Unfortunately, there does not seem to be a way to export the installation "context" or metadata that embodies the fully configured state of Moneydance at a particular point in time. The only export possible is that of the actual financial data itself. All the tweaks and customizations that make an installation of Moneydance unique must be manually re-created which is a significant issue.

Request:
Allow the customizations, tools, enhancements, tweaks, extensions, and everything else, (except for the financial data), that comprises the fully customized installation for a particular user.

Ideally, the result of this should be an installation that exactly mirrors the functionality, (and licensing state if possible), of the original installation being migrated away from.

Thanks!

Jim

1. 1 Posted by Stuart Beesley ... on 28 Jan, 2026 02:15 PM

   

   FYI - extensions, once reinstalled, typically remember their settings - assuming you are using a file/restore from backup dataset option.

   Are you saying you have found some extensions that don't do this?

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2. 2 Posted by jimrh on 28 Jan, 2026 02:25 PM

   

   I reinstalled Moneydance and re-imported the saved/backup dataset. I did not see an option to backup the installation context.

   ====================

   Jim

   Sent using my Samsung Galaxy A71.
   (Which costs considerably less than your iPhone and works just as well.)

   [Image]

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3. 3 Posted by dwg on 29 Jan, 2026 12:58 AM

   

   As I said I have bought Windows configuration files over to Linux, in fact the whole Windows user Moneydance home folder and it mostly works.

   There is really no system independent way of expressing things like file paths, Windows and Linux is similar to a degree after you get past things like disk specifications, where the users home files are and slashes vs backslashes. But macOS throws a spanner in the works.

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4. 4 Posted by jimrh on 29 Jan, 2026 07:26 AM

   

   I tried that. ("That" = creating a ZIP archive of my entire Moneydance directory in my Windows' home directory and extracting it to my Linux home directory.)

   The result is that it appeared to transfer cleanly.

   I noticed previously that */copying/* the directory did */not/* work, possibly because copying doesn't resolve path names correctly - or I did something wrong.

   In any event, this seems janky to me, in the same way that doing a data export/backup would be janky if the user had to manually copy the appropriate files each time.

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5. 5 Posted by dwg on 29 Jan, 2026 09:09 AM

   

   I have copied the complete directory tree, as I was too lazy to create a zip file and extract it at the other end, and did not encounter any specific problems, I did use an external HDD for the purpose, not a memory key.

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6. 6 Posted by jimrh on 08 Feb, 2026 10:06 AM

   

   I was using a HDD for the transaction myself. (I plug in a 3T external HDD via eSata as an external scratch-pad storage when doing updates/transfers of this type.

   I created the compressed file on the source, (Windows), system, copied it to the external drive and then copied it back to the Linux system and unpacked it.

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7. 7 Posted by jimrh on 08 Feb, 2026 10:23 AM

   

   FYI - extensions, once reinstalled, typically remember their settings - assuming you are using a file/restore from backup dataset option.

   Are you saying you have found some extensions that don't do this?

   I noticed that several extensions didn't successfully make the move, like the "Find and Replace" extension, which did not appear in the extension list until I uninstalled and reinstalled it. Once that was done I found it and it was configured the way I left it.

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