Investment DAT files..

[sjcarmich]

I'm on Windows 10...
I have some Investments with 51 DAT files associated with that "single" investment, all with the same investment name but with different "date modified" dates. Is the most current Date file for that investment... all encompassing data wise, or do I need keep all the older versions of that investment as well.

[Mark]

Hi sjcarmich,

Each *.DAT would have a slightly different filename if they're in the same folder. Likely, they have a number at the end of each to differentiate them. If all of these are for the same investment, you only need 1. Before deleting (or moving), make sure the one's you delete/move aren't open in FM. You can find the filename of each open investment in FM in a variety of ways. You can add it to a Custom report, you can add it to the Portfolio Editor (View / List Columns...) with the Location and Filename fields. You can also see the filename under "Investment Properties... / Statistics".

If you determine which file is open, I would suggest "moving" the other files to a temporary folder first, and then exit/re-start FM to make sure it doesn't give any errors about missing investment files. After this, you can safely delete the moved files.

[sjcarmich]

Thanks Mark.... just the info I was looking for.

[ricbertsch]

So Mark, are you saying that if my Fund Manager folder the following is showing
20405KAH7_901041487.dat
20405KAH7_901503100.dat
20405KAH7_901684780.dat
(There are probably another 30 more)

That I can delete all of except the first one? ,particulary if they have the same dates?

If so, I have a heck of alot of deleting to do.

Thanks,
Ric Bertsch

[Mark]

Hi Ric Bertsch,

No, I am not saying that. I was trying to say you must first figure out which investment files are open in FM, and then you can close the others that aren't being used. You cannot tell which files are open by looking in the folder. The filenames and date modified don't tell you for sure which files are open. The only way to know for sure is to look in FM with the methods I described previously.

The extra files really aren't hurting anything, so you can just leave them be. Otherwise, please re-read my prior post on this topic.

Another way you could accomplish a cleaning of your investment files is to use "File / File Operations / Set Data Location...". If you create a new folder, and then use this command to move everything into there, anything not moved isn't being used by your current portfolio file (*.mm4). If you use multiple portfolio files you'd want to do this for each one, before cleaning out the old folder.

Please do make backups using "File / Backup..." before you attempt to clean any of your data files in case things don't go as planned.