This Tab allows you to access PB's database files. Just click the button “Open database folder”, and Windows Explorer will open the folder for you:

In the database folder, you'll find three essential files for Portfolio Boss. Note, the extension .db (on those files) may not show up depending on your Windows Explorer settings. It doesn't matter, the files are the same:

• PortfolioBoss.user.db (contains the interface settings, such as panels' sizes, colors, scale, etc),
• PortfolioBoss.data.db (contains the historic price data for your instruments), and
• PortfolioBoss.master.db (contains your Strategies and Portfolios).

In this help page, we'll discuss the most common scenarios in using the database files:

• Backup the database
• Restore the database
• Restoring the database to another machine
• Changing the database folder

Backup the Database

1. Open the database folder through Portfolio Boss.
2. Make sure you close Portfolio Boss before doing the backup.
3. Copy all three files.
4. Navigate to the backup location (or create a new folder).
5. Paste all three files into the backup folder.

Note, the file PortfolioBoss.data.db is usually very large. It is okay not to backup this file if you don't have enough space. But it is highly recommended that you backup that file as well, to prevent a possible synchronization error later down the road.

Restore the Database

1. Open your backup folder.
2. Copy all three files (the backup files).
3. Open the database folder through Portfolio Boss.
4. Close Portfolio Boss.
5. Delete all three database files (on the database folder).
6. Paste the three backup files on this database folder.

Note, deleting the current database files is the most important step to avoid synchronization error. For example if you don't backup the PortfolioBoss.data.db. That way, Portfolio Boss will automatically re-download all historic price data if that file can't be found. If you simply use the current PortfolioBoss.data.db, there's a possible synchronization error between your backup files and the current historic price data.

Restoring the Database to Another Machine

The steps are similar to the previous scenario: as long as you can transfer the backup files from one machine to the other, it's fine. You can use the USB stick route, as shown above; or you can upload those files to a cloud storage, and download them to the other machine; or use a LAN connection for direct transfer between the machines.

1. Make sure you have a USB stick on hand. Plug it to your 1st machine.
2. Open the backup folder.
3. Right-click the three backup files, choose “Send to”, and click on the name of your USB stick (in the video above, it's called USB_STICK; yours might be different).
4. Now unplug the USB stick, walk to your 2nd machine, and plug the USB stick there.
5. Open Portfolio Boss on that 2nd machine, and open its database folder.
6. Once the database folder is opened (for that 2nd machine), close Portfolio Boss.
7. Delete the current database files on that 2nd machine.
8. Now copy the files (from that USB stick) and paste them to the 2nd machine's database folder.

Note, Portfolio Boss's database are machine independent: you can have all your strategies & portfolios on both machines.

Changing the Database Folder

By default, the database folder is located at: %localappdata%\PortfolioBoss\Data. But you can change it to another folder, for example if your Drive C is full. To do so:

• First make sure you close Portfolio Boss.
• Then move the files in %localappdata%\PortfolioBoss\Data to where you want to store them. Make sure previous folder is now empty.
• Create a text file in %localappdata%\PortfolioBoss\Data and name it redirect.txt
• In that text file, write the path to the new location. It's not necessary to use quotation marks (“…”) if the path contains blank space.
• Start Portfolio Boss. It will read the path from that text file. You're essentially “redirecting” Portfolio Boss to use that path.

Note:

• Inside that redirect.txt file, you can write a hashtag character, that is # to annul any path that comes after that character. For example, you can write # G:\PortfolioBoss 2nd Database. Portfolio Boss will ignore anything after that # character. It's useful if you're experimenting with different versions of the database files (for example, different PB layouts & settings, etc). Thus to switch back and forth between the two database folders, you can add or remove the # character in front of the path.

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