How to Change the Location of the Data Files
StockMarketEye data files contain all of the investing information that you have entered into StockMarketEye. Watchlists, Portfolios, Transactions and even historical stock prices are stored in a special set of files on your computer.
Some users, however, may wish to keep their investing information in a different location. For example...
- You want to keep your investing information on a USB key or external hard drive so you can take the data with you.
- You want to keep your investing information on a separate disk that is backed up regularly.
- You want to keep your investing information on an encrypted partition.
StockMarketEye allows you to do any of these by making it easy to change the location of the data files that it uses.
Default Location of the Data Files
By default, StockMarketEye stores its data files in a folder called “db” in a standard location on your computer.
Changing the Data File Location
You can follow these steps to change the location of the data files that StockMarketEye uses.
1. We strongly suggest using StockMarketEye’s Backup/Restore feature to backup your data before you change the data file location. This will ensure that you can recover from any problems that might happen while working through the steps below.
2. Quit StockMarketEye. It is important that StockMarketEye is not running when performing this change.
ATTENTION: Always quit StockMarketEye before ejecting or unmounting any removable media on which you store the StockMarketEye data files.
If you remove a USB key or external hard drive where the StockMarketEye data base is stored before quitting StockMarketEye, your data will be corrupted.
4. Copy the “db” folder from the default location (listed above) to the place you want to store the data. This can be a removable drive, a network drive or simply a different location on your computer.
5. Use a text editor to edit the following file for your operating system.
NOTE: this file may not yet exist. In this case, you will have to create a new file.
Be sure that the file is called “sme_overrides.properties”. There should not be any other ending (such as ‘.txt’, which Windows Notepad adds) on the file name.
This should be a plain text file. It should not be a rich text, Word or other type of document.
| macOS |
/Users/<youruser>/Library/Application Support/StockMarketEye5/sme_overrides.properties |
| Windows | C:\Users\<youruser>\AppData\Roaming\StockMarketEye5\sme_overrides.properties |
| Linux | /home/<your user>/.config/StockMarketEye5/sme_overrides.properties |
6. Add the following line to the sme_overrides.properties file, replacing <db-folder-location> with the new location of the “db” folder (from step #3).
sme.db.dir=<db-folder-location>
Here are some examples:
| macOS | sme.db.dir=/Volumes/MyUSBKey/StockMarketEye_data/db or sme.db.dir=/Users/nick/Dropbox/StockMarketEye_data/db |
| Windows | sme.db.dir=C:\Users\john\My Encrypted Stuff\StockMarketEye_data\db Note: Spaces in the path name can sometimes cause problems. If you’re having issues with it not recognizing the folder correctly, try a path without spaces. |
| Linux | sme.db.dir=/media/MyUSBKey/StockMarketEye_data/db |
7. Save the sme_overrides.properties file.
8. Start StockMarketEye.
Trouble Shooting
Here are some of the common problems you might see and how you can fix them.
- When starting StockMarketEye you see a window that says “We have detected another instance of StockMarketEye running on your computer.”
- This most likely means that StockMarketEye could not read the data files from the new location. Ensure that you can view the contents of the “db” folder and that the location specified in the sme_overrides.properties file is correct.
- When starting StockMarketEye you see the default StockMarketEye window, containing only the default Watchlists and Portfolios. Your Watchlists and Portfolios are not there.
- This happens when the location specified in the sme_overrides.properties file does not exist. StockMarketEye will create new data files at this location and use them. You can solve this problem by setting the location in sme_overrides.properties to the correct location of your StockMarketEye data files (“db” folder).