Find QuickBooks company data files and backups

Learn how to find your company file or most recent backup in QuickBooks Desktop. 

QuickBooks makes it convenient to locate your file or backup files.

Select Find a company file on the No Company Open window. You normally see this when you first start QuickBooks or when you close your company file.

When you select Find a company file, it automatically scans for the following file extensions:

• .QBW, your QuickBooks working file.
• .QBB, your QuickBooks backup file.

You can scan for removable media such as a USB flash drive, or your network.

Manually locate your files

You can also find your files or backups with File Explorer. Here’s how:

Search with file explorer:

1. Open the Windows Start menu
2. Type File Explorer into the search and open File Explorer.
3. Select My Computer or This PC from the navigation bar. 
4. In the search field, type *.qbw, *.qbb to find all files. Make sure you include the asterisk (*) before the extension. You can also search for *.qb for QuickBooks.

What to look for:

• The usual location for a QuickBooks Desktop company files is:
  C:\Users\Public\Public Documents\Intuit\QuickBooks\Company Files
• View the file name, date, timestamp, and or size to see which is the most current.
• If you host your file through a Hosting Service, contact your service directly for help.