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Create a backup of your company file

Learn how to create a backup for your QuickBooks Desktop company file to protect against accidental data loss, and find answers to frequently asked questions about backups.

You can save backup copies of your QuickBooks Desktop company file to protect against the accidental loss of your data.

Backup copies provide important insurance. If you lose data for any reason, you can restore your company file using your backup copy.

For more information about restoring files, see Restore a backup company file

Note: If you do not currently have a data backup solution, QuickBooks offers multiple products with an automatic data backup and recovery feature. To find out if these products are right for you, contact our sales team at 888-566-4671.

If your company file is synced with Intuit online services using Intuit Data Protect, see Intuit Data Protect: Frequently Asked Questions

If you need to email a copy of your company file, see Create or restore a QuickBooks Desktop portable company file.

Back up your company file

When you create a backup of your company file, you save a copy of the file to a location you specify. You can select a file hosting service (such as DropBox), or a flash drive or other removable media to save backups somewhere other than your main local drive in case of a system failure.

As you set up your backup, you can also set up backup reminders that prompt you to back up when you close your company file a specified number of times, or create a schedule of regular backups.

Perform the following steps to back up your company file:

  1. Select File, and select Switch to Single-user Mode.
  2. From the File menu, select Backup Company, and select Create Local Backup.
  3. In the Create Backup dialog, select Local Backup.
  4. Select Options to open the Backup Options dialog.
  5. In the Tell us where to save your backup copies field, select Browse and select the location in which to save the backup copy.
  6. (Optional) Specify whether to add the date and time of the backup to the file name to make it easier to identify a specific backup file, and whether to set a limit on the number of backup copies to save to the folder you specified to save hard drive space.
  7. In the Online and Local Backup section, optionally select the Remind me to back up when I close my company file option to set a frequency for backup reminders.
  8. Select one of the verification options to verify the data you save and alert you to any data corruption.
    Company file backup options menu in QuickBooks
  9. Select Ok.
  10. In the Create Backup window, specify whether to back up automatically, and select Options to set options for automatic backups.
    Create new company backup file menu in QuickBooks
  11. Optionally select New to set a backup schedule in the Schedule Backups dialog.
    Schedule backups of company file in QuickBooks
    You can give your schedule a description, specify a backup location, and set the options for what days and times the backup should be performed on.
  12. Select Finish.

QBBBackup Temp folders questions

Learn answers to questions about QBBackupTemp folders in the following sections.

Questions and answers about backup files

Check out the following sections for answers about general questions about backups.