Hiding a category in Quicken

As your Category List grows, it can become harder to find the categories you use regularly. Some categories can be deleted, but others—especially those used by Quicken or linked to historical data—are best kept but hidden. Hiding unused or seldom-used categories keeps your lists clean without affecting your data.

Should I hide, delete, or merge a category?

• Hide a category if you might use it again later or if Quicken requires it.

• Delete a category only if you’re sure it isn’t in use and not needed for past transactions or reports.

• Merge categories if you have duplicates or similar entries that should be combined for consistency. This permanently reassigns transactions from one category to another. if you might use it again later or if Quicken requires it.

Hide a category

To simplify your list without removing any data:

1. Choose Tools > Category List.

2. If the list is long, use the Search field to find the category.

3. Right-click the category you want to hide.

4. Select Hide/Unhide.

When you hide a parent category, all its subcategories are hidden automatically.

How to view or unhide categories

To show hidden categories in the list:

• In the Category List, select the Show hidden categories checkbox at the bottom of the window.

• Hidden categories will now appear and can be unhidden by right-clicking and selecting Hide/Unhide again.

What hiding a category does—and doesn’t do

• Hidden categories don’t appear in the Category field when entering a transaction.

• They remain in your file and continue to appear in reports and calculations where used.

• Hiding does not delete or modify any existing transaction data.

Tip: If you have many unused categories, hiding them helps reduce clutter without losing any historical tracking or structure.