How do you store your electronic account statements?

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mptfan
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How do you store your electronic account statements?

Post by mptfan »

For those of you who have gone paperless and no longer get physical paper statements from your financial providers (eg. Vanguard, Schwab, your bank or credit union, credit card provider, etc), I have the following questions...

1) Do you periodically download the electronic pdf statements from the provider's website and store them, or, do you not download them and simply rely on having access to the statements on the website in the event that you need them?

2) Assuming you download the statements, how do you save them? Do you store them on your local computer hard drive? Portable hard drive? USB? CDs? Do you back them up regularly? Do you upload them to a cloud based storage service like Google Docs or Dropbox? Some combination thereof? Do you password protect the files? If you do use a cloud based storage system, are you concerned about privacy or security of your data?

I have gone paperless and I no longer get paper account statements mailed to me. I download the statements and save them on Google Drive, and I don't save them anywhere else, and I don't have them backed up anywhere else.
mnvalue
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Re: How do you store your electronic account statements?

Post by mnvalue »

I download them. I think this is important to protect against the risk that my bank loses any record of my account. People here who have had that happen say they typically get treated as though they're making it up until they manage to find an old statement. In addition to my regular offsite, encrypted backups for all my data, I also sync these files to a USB drive periodically for my wife's benefit (e.g. if I get hit by a bus). I'm considering switching from the USB drive to Dropbox, since we're using Dropbox for YNAB anyway. I'm not so worried about putting statements into Dropbox, but I have other documentation on the USB drive that has passwords, security question answers, etc., and I'm not sure I'm comfortable putting that "in the cloud".
Afty
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Re: How do you store your electronic account statements?

Post by Afty »

I download them and strongly encourage you to do that too. Some companies don't keep records older than a certain amount, and even if they do that now, they may change their policy in the future. Also, what if you close an account? What if the company loses the records?

I store them on my local hard drive but also back them up to the cloud using Crashplan. Crashplan supports encryption where only I (not them) know the password, so I feel confident they don't have access to the documents.
Mike Scott
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Re: How do you store your electronic account statements?

Post by Mike Scott »

I print them :) Digital storage is simply not a reliable replacement for paper.
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vectorizer
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Re: How do you store your electronic account statements?

Post by vectorizer »

First, backup of computer files in general is a topic that comes up here pretty regularly. You may want to search for long threads on the subject.

But, to answer your question (which is unlikely to be the right answer for YOU):

I generally download and reconcile most account financial statements quarterly as PDF files ... the important ones like retirement and education investment accounts (not credit cards). I download statements for the less important accounts (generally those with less than 10k) once a year. I also print out and file the most important statements once a year.

The PDF files are in a directory tree that have Windows access rights for both me and my wife, but no one else. I also use Windows' EFS on the directory tree, meant for protection if the computer is physically stolen for it's function, not it's information. Automated daily backups are performed (using Acronis) to a different drive in the same PC to protect against single drive failure. The financial directory is zipped up and encrypted once a week with AES-256 using a very strong password, and uploaded to a web server file system (not in a navigable directory of course) because it's cheap Internet storage. Lastly, everything on the PC (including about 1.2TB of media files) is copied to an external physical hard drive about once a quarter; this is swapped with another one locked up in a different physical location, to protect against a house-wide disaster.

I personally would not even think about uploading private information to any "cloud" provider unless I encrypted it myself first, using software and a password or key that only I controlled.
ddunca1944
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Re: How do you store your electronic account statements?

Post by ddunca1944 »

mptfan wrote:For those of you who have gone paperless and no longer get physical paper statements from your financial providers (eg. Vanguard, Schwab, your bank or credit union, credit card provider, etc), I have the following questions...

1) Do you periodically download the electronic pdf statements from the provider's website and store them, or, do you not download them and simply rely on having access to the statements on the website in the event that you need them?

2) Assuming you download the statements, how do you save them? Do you store them on your local computer hard drive? Portable hard drive? USB? CDs? Do you back them up regularly? Do you upload them to a cloud based storage service like Google Docs or Dropbox? Some combination thereof? Do you password protect the files? If you do use a cloud based storage system, are you concerned about privacy or security of your data?

I have gone paperless and I no longer get paper account statements mailed to me. I download the statements and save them on Google Drive, and I don't save them anywhere else, and I don't have them backed up anywhere else.
I download the pdf files and save them on my hard drive. When I do my taxes I burn a pdf file of my tax return as well as the pdf files of my VG statements onto a CD and save them. I would not save anything that sensitive on the cloud.
JamesSF
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Re: How do you store your electronic account statements?

Post by JamesSF »

I've gone completely paperless, shredding all paper, so I've had to be careful about security and backup.

For the few statements or documents I still receive in the mail, I use a ScanSnap scanner to quickly turn them into searchable PDF files, then immediately shred them.

For the rest, I download them all from the respective financial institutions' web site. Then I store them all in the cloud so they're backed up and safe from a computer / home catastrophe. I don't trust the security of the cloud providers, so I create an encrypted volume on my Mac (basically like a virtual disk drive that's strongly encrypted) - you can do this using the Disk Utility - then copy changes to that volume to the cloud every night. I use JungleDisk, which stores the files on Amazon's cloud and only copies over the changes, but there are many options out there to do this.

This gives me a few things:

1) My files are strongly encrypted. If the cloud provider's security is lax or if someone breaks into my home or computer, they still can't read the files.
2) The files are safe, backed up in multiple locations in the Amazon cloud. So if someone steals my computer or burns down my home, I can still access them.
3) I can store scans of sensitive stuff (passport, birth certificate, medical records, etc.) in the same volume, so they're also safe and protected.
4) Only files that are added or changed are copied over each night.
5) Financial web sites only store a few years of statements, so this allows me to keep all of them for as long as I want.
6) As an added benefit, I can create a DVD holding this encrypted volume, and give it to my beneficiaries. When they are given the password when I become disabled or die, they now have access to all of my financial records, phone #s, web site passwords, etc, which I've also stored there.

This all costs me a few dollars a month, payable to JungleDisk. The same thing could be done for free with DropBox, Google Drive, etc. I also store my iPhoto photographs this way, and my Quicken backups, but don't encrypt those.
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SmileyFace
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Re: How do you store your electronic account statements?

Post by SmileyFace »

I'm paranoid (and disagree with statement from Mike Scott about paper copies - I don't find paper copies as reliable as electronic copies - can be lost in a fire or misplaced more easily:)) so my method:
1) Download to computer (filed into folders by account / year).
2) Backed up automatically to Network Drive
3) Periodically (twice a year-ish) manually backed up to a portable drive and placed in safety deposit box.

If I lose my computer - I'm covered. If my entire house goes up in flames - I'm covered (may have to re-download the last 5-6 months). My other critical data that is backed up alongside in this manner is 15 years of digital photography.

Being paranoid - I don't trust this stuff in the cloud - hack waiting to happen.
user5027
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Re: How do you store your electronic account statements?

Post by user5027 »

I download all statements to my laptop. I do periodic backups (several times a week) of my laptop to two usb portable drives. One is at home and the other is at work so I am protected if my house or office burns down with one of the drives and my laptop.

If your house burns down your paper statements are ashes.
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Toons
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Re: How do you store your electronic account statements?

Post by Toons »

I have been "paperless "for years.I have never downloaded statements and stored them digitally from financial websites.I have found that I rarely need to look at them other than at tax time,so I just access them at the website. :happy
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tinkerman79
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Re: How do you store your electronic account statements?

Post by tinkerman79 »

I rely on the providers for basic docs like bank statements, etc.. For what I consider more important documents (like tax returns, scanned copies of SS cards, passports, etc.) I use a program called boxcryptor (free for personal use) with google drive. It encrypts all the files in a folder you select and can work with cloud-based storage. And I have google drive synch the encrypted folder on multiple computers to have backup copies (essentially my home pc and my wife's laptop). I even saved a copy of the boxcryptor program to have that old version available in the future.

On the plus side, you get the best of encryption and cloud-based storage/synchronization/backup. Even if someone hacks google, they can't see your files unless they have your password.

On the minus side, you are hosed if you forget the password to your boxcrytor folder. But that is true for any encryption setup where you don't want to share your password.
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Cut-Throat
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Re: How do you store your electronic account statements?

Post by Cut-Throat »

I Don't.
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cfs
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Re: How do you store your electronic account statements?

Post by cfs »

Various.

I get electronic statements for investments and all my bills, download the pdf copy to my laptop, copy to my ready t-drive, copy to my external hard drive, nothing goes to the clouds as I am cloud-less because I just do not trust the clouds.
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Saving$
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Re: How do you store your electronic account statements?

Post by Saving$ »

This is a great discussion - very helpful. I wish there were some sort of wiki or matrix for "how to" for this.

For paper statements or correspondence, I scan on my $50 all in one printer/scanner. It came with software that convert the scan to a text searchable pd.
For anything I can get electronically I download periodically (once a month or so) .
The above gets me both types of docs in searchable pdf. I use a standardized file naming convention so I can find stuff, and put things in folder by type, account and year.
It is all on my hard drive. I back the hard drive up about one every 2-3 months onto an external drive I keep in a fireproof safe. Once a year I do a back up that I keep at a friends house a few miles away.

I wanted to learn how to encrypt stuff, so based on advice here a few years ago, I started using TrueCrypt for a small subset of data. I never did figure out how to put it in the cloud (DropBox or Google Drive). I found I often did not take the time to "mount the drive" etc. in True Crypt and was saving things outside of it, then moving them into it occasionally. Now TrueCrypt is defunct to I need to find a better solution.

For those who manage encryption and autobackup/saving to the cloud, especially:
JamesSF wrote:I don't trust the security of the cloud providers, so I create an encrypted volume on my Mac (basically like a virtual disk drive that's strongly encrypted) - you can do this using the Disk Utility - then copy changes to that volume to the cloud every night. I use JungleDisk, which stores the files on Amazon's cloud and only copies over the changes, but there are many options out there to do this.
Please share how you do this, if there is a cost, if it is automatic or you manually do it, and if it really is safe. Would love to set up a system like this, but am paranoid about getting hacked. I don't even have a home network, because I'm afraid to get hacked.
JamesSF
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Re: How do you store your electronic account statements?

Post by JamesSF »

Saving$ wrote: Please share how you do this, if there is a cost, if it is automatic or you manually do it, and if it really is safe. Would love to set up a system like this, but am paranoid about getting hacked. I don't even have a home network, because I'm afraid to get hacked.
The nice thing about cloud storage is that even if you don't trust the cloud, you can still use it for what it's good at. While putting your files directly on Dropbox, Google Drive, etc. may be kind of safe, it's still possible to encrypt your files before you store them, which makes the situation very safe.

Storing electronic files unencrypted on your computer or an external hard drive is not a great solution; hard drives often fail, and demagnetize over time, so a hard drive in a safe deposit box or at your friend's house may or may not work when you finally need it. Backup disks can be stolen, and if they're not encrypted, your files will be compromised. Your computer can be hacked or stolen; if you don't take precautions, the thief or hacker can access all your files this way, whether or not you store them in a cloud service. Storing encrypted files on a cloud services means that you don't have to worry about any of this; they're backed up in multiple geographical locations, and there are no hard drive failures to worry about.

Here are some suggestions if you do want to use cloud storage in a safe manner, based on your level of risk aversion:

1) Just put them (unencrypted) on a service like google drive or dropbox. If you turn on "multi factor authentication", it's fairly safe. But you have to trust the provider.
2) Encrypt them first, then put them on a cloud service. Then you don't need to trust the provider. But this is a fairly manual process, not automatic.
3) Use a service that encrypts them first and then stores them in a cloud provider. I use JungleDisk, but there are many like this out there.
4) Be super cautious: store your files in an encrypted volume, then store the encrypted volume via 3). There are two levels of encryption in this scenario. I do this, and it's overkill. I do it more to protect from someone hacking into or stealing my computer.

It's more likely that your own computer or backup disks will be compromised or stolen than your cloud data will be compromised or stolen. Be sure to address this possibility.

If you'd like to create a safe, encrypted volume on a Mac, follow these steps:

1) Open Disk Utility, and click "New Image"
2) Enter "MyFinancialFiles" in the "Save As" and "Name" fields
3) Set encryption to "256 bit AES"
4) Set "image format" to "sparse bundle disk image"
5) Press create, and enter a password to protect your files. Don't select "remember in my keychain". Don't forget the password.

MyFinancialFiles now appears like a disk drive / folder on the Mac. If you double click on "MyFinancialFiles.sparsebundle" in your Documents folder, you can enter your password, and your new secure folder appears. Put all your sensitive documents in this folder. When you're done, "eject" this virtual disk volume / folder, and it's now secure. When you need to access your files or add new ones, double click on "MyFinancialFiles.sparsebundle" again and enter your password; the folder will appear.

Now, if someone breaks into your computer or steals it, they can't open this folder without entering the password you set. And they can't see your files at all unless they have the password. You can safely copy this "MyFinancialFiles.sparsebundle" folder anywhere you want - cloud, DVD, anywhere - knowing that only people who have the password can decrypt it.

I use a service called JungleDisk that copies these encrypted files to the cloud every night at 3AM automatically, so they're always there. It's a paid service - for me it's about $3/month. But you can also store it to a USB flash drive or an external hard disk if you don't trust the cloud, or copy it to a free cloud service like Google Drive or Dropbox and sleep easily. The key here is that the files are encrypted - if someone steals the hard drive or flash drive, or breaks into your Google Drive or Dropbox account, they can't see your sensitive files without your password, period.

AES 256-bit security won't be cracked until the human race develops quantum computers in 2090, but by then, you'll have spent all your money and it won't matter.
BoxOfUpticks
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Re: How do you store your electronic account statements?

Post by BoxOfUpticks »

Afty wrote:I download them and strongly encourage you to do that too. Some companies don't keep records older than a certain amount, and even if they do that now, they may change their policy in the future. Also, what if you close an account? What if the company loses the records?

I store them on my local hard drive but also back them up to the cloud using Crashplan. Crashplan supports encryption where only I (not them) know the password, so I feel confident they don't have access to the documents.
i do the same -- the setting on Crashplan whereby only i have the key is an important aspect, imho.

Beware that providers aren't the best at dealing the CURRENT docs, let alone old docs.

My insurance renews in three days. Three policies - auto, home, umbrella, all through the same company, and accessible via the same login to their website. They're normally available in early august. The auto & umbrella were, but no sign of the ho. a few weeks ago, they send me bills for all three, but still no docs for the ho. I called their 800 number, they confirmed, said it would take a couple days. A week goes by, i call my local (and normally useless) agent, they can get a copy but can't email them to me securely, but promise to print & mail the policy (still waiting, two weeks now -- did i mention they're useless). Just last night, a whopping three days before renewal, the docs are available online.

While i didn't trust institutions to make my historical electronic statements available, i never imagined that current docs would be so problematic.
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crg11
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Re: How do you store your electronic account statements?

Post by crg11 »

This is my workflow:

1) I download the electronic statements to my home Mac as I receive email alerts about them coming available.

2) I use a program called Hazel that looks for certain keywords within files in my Downloads folder. For example, it might look for the name "Vanguard" and "Statement" appearing within a PDF file.

3) Hazel will take that file, detect the statement date within it (!), and rename the file in this format: yyyy-mm-dd - <company name> - <FileName>.pdf. So in the case of the Vanguard example, the file would be renamed 2014-09-18 - Vanguard - Quarterly Statement.pdf.

4) Hazel then moves the file automatically to the appropriate folder on my Mac's hard drive.

5) My Mac hard drive is fully encrypted, protecting its contents if it is stolen.

6) My Mac is backed up locally using the Time Machine feature to an Apple Time Capsule router. This is handy if I have to restore a Mac locally, such as if a hard drive failed or if I accidentally deleted a file.

7) My Mac is also automatically backed up using an online backup service, Backblaze. This is handy for the unthinkable (house burning down, all of my stuff being stolen, etc). Backblaze will actually send a hard drive to me with all of my files in an emergency. You can also set a custom encryption key so that even Backblaze can't view your files.

The nice thing is really the only action I have to take is to download the account statement, my Mac takes care of the rest and I have multiple backups that I don't have to maintain, the Mac handles it for me. If you are relying on a manual backup as the only copy protect your stuff, you're going to be sorry at some point.
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Index Fan
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Re: How do you store your electronic account statements?

Post by Index Fan »

I store my recent electronic account statements on an encrypted flash drive.

My older electronic records I store on a CD.
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ResearchMed
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Re: How do you store your electronic account statements?

Post by ResearchMed »

crg11 wrote:This is my workflow:

1) I download the electronic statements to my home Mac as I receive email alerts about them coming available.

2) I use a program called Hazel that looks for certain keywords within files in my Downloads folder. For example, it might look for the name "Vanguard" and "Statement" appearing within a PDF file.

3) Hazel will take that file, detect the statement date within it (!), and rename the file in this format: yyyy-mm-dd - <company name> - <FileName>.pdf. So in the case of the Vanguard example, the file would be renamed 2014-09-18 - Vanguard - Quarterly Statement.pdf.

4) Hazel then moves the file automatically to the appropriate folder on my Mac's hard drive.

5) My Mac hard drive is fully encrypted, protecting its contents if it is stolen.

6) My Mac is backed up locally using the Time Machine feature to an Apple Time Capsule router. This is handy if I have to restore a Mac locally, such as if a hard drive failed or if I accidentally deleted a file.

7) My Mac is also automatically backed up using an online backup service, Backblaze. This is handy for the unthinkable (house burning down, all of my stuff being stolen, etc). Backblaze will actually send a hard drive to me with all of my files in an emergency. You can also set a custom encryption key so that even Backblaze can't view your files.

The nice thing is really the only action I have to take is to download the account statement, my Mac takes care of the rest and I have multiple backups that I don't have to maintain, the Mac handles it for me. If you are relying on a manual backup as the only copy protect your stuff, you're going to be sorry at some point.
Backblaze was completely useless when I *needed* it due to a catastrophic computer failure. Needed to start from scratch, re-install software, etc.
I had only recently started Backblaze as a redundancy to the Carbonite we'd used for a couple of years.

I posted here at BH a real-time log of what was happening with both companies, once we [quickly] realized that Backblaze was actually a horrible joke.

There is NO "customer service" to speak of at Backblaze. The "best" is the "we'll send you an email response within 24 hours", and that was often "we are looking into this and will get back to you within 24 hours as promised in our agreement" (NOT exact wording, but captures the reality).

FINALLY, they sent "clues" (opaque, but at least something), and I started the download. ALL of the folders were... EMPTY, despite it running seemingly forever.
Throughout, EVERY "please help, there is nothing..." email was met with the requisite 24 hour turnaround.

Meanwhile, Carbonite?
They ANSWER the PHONE, and are actually cheerful and - lo and behold - helpful (all but one of the tech support folks really impressed).
Because it IS a S-L-O-W process (they've speeded it up a bit, but still slow), I upgraded on the spot, and 2 days later, a FedEx parcel with new backup harddrive arrived, all ready to go.

(Backblaze? Still on a 24 hour wait for more something or other, with absolutely NO data actually downloaded, not Word.docs, pdfs, or anything at all.)

We got our money back from Backblaze. Interestingly, that process was fast. 24 hours to "respond" with a "yes, we'll issue a refund", and then a credit really fast.
(Needless to say, a prompt refund of the modest annual fee was NOT why we were using them!)

If we had had ONLY Backblaze? We both shudder.

TRY to get a response from them, before relying on them.

And we've upgraded the Carbonite to mirror it all, including software. Hopefully we'll never need to find out how that works.

RM
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Cut-Throat
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Re: How do you store your electronic account statements?

Post by Cut-Throat »

Toons wrote:I have been "paperless "for years.I have never downloaded statements and stored them digitally from financial websites.I have found that I rarely need to look at them other than at tax time,so I just access them at the website. :happy
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Agreed! - What do these other folks do with these statements and why even keep them?
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Re: How do you store your electronic account statements?

Post by 2beachcombers »

Cut-Throat wrote:
Toons wrote:I have been "paperless "for years.I have never downloaded statements and stored them digitally from financial websites.I have found that I rarely need to look at them other than at tax time,so I just access them at the website. :happy
Keep it Simple
Agreed! - What do these other folks do with these statements and why even keep them?
+1; Fido has the records--recently ask for 3 yrs tax records from 5 yrs ago(IRS confused themselves) :twisted:
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Re: How do you store your electronic account statements?

Post by abuss368 »

This is one area I have been hesitant about. Everything we do is electronic today. We "reconcile" (if you call it that anymore) our checking account in practically real time every week or two as there is usually only one or two transactions.

Years ago we were printing everything and placing in a binder. It got to the point were we stepped back and looked at the growing binder, and shredded all banking and credit card statements. We do not store anything electronically on our computer. Essentially any statement can be pulled up for many years once you sign into a website.

The security is just something that I am not familiar with or understand one hundred percent. We do however print out the investment statements and the debt statements and place in a binder. This has worked very well and we plan to stay the course.
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thenextguy
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Re: How do you store your electronic account statements?

Post by thenextguy »

JamesSF wrote:
Saving$ wrote: Please share how you do this, if there is a cost, if it is automatic or you manually do it, and if it really is safe. Would love to set up a system like this, but am paranoid about getting hacked. I don't even have a home network, because I'm afraid to get hacked.
*snip

AES 256-bit security won't be cracked until the human race develops quantum computers in 2090, but by then, you'll have spent all your money and it won't matter.

I tried doing something similar once, but ran into some issues. I wanted the process to be as automated as possible. The problem was that Dropbox only re-syncs when files have changed. But the encrypted volume I was using didn't register as being changed when I made changes to it. The filesize of the volume was always the same no matter what I put in it. From what I understand that is a feature and not a bug, but it makes automated backups challenging. Any ideas?
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Re: How do you store your electronic account statements?

Post by linenfort »

I download PDFs to a hard drive and copy to an external one.
I don't encrypt, and I look at the statements way too often.
vv19
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Re: How do you store your electronic account statements?

Post by vv19 »

I don't?
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