Restoring the company file from the backup file

Great job on getting through most of the restoration process, Paul. Let’s now make sure you’ve converted the .QBB file back into a working .QBW company file.

When restoring a backup file (.QBW) in QuickBooks, it involves specific steps to successfully restore and create a working .QBW company file. If you’ve saved the restored company file in the same folder as your existing file, this may have overwritten your data.

If that isn’t the case, manually locate the folder where you saved the restored .QBW file. Once you’ve confirmed the file exists, follow these steps in your desktop account:

1. On the QuickBooks Desktop home screen, where you see the opening menu with the list of companies, click on Open or Restore an Existing Company.
2. Select Open a Company File and locate the folder where the restored .QBW file exists.
3. Then, open the company file and confirm everything is working as expected.

However, if you still can’t locate the restored company file, you can utilize the Find a company file feature in QBDT. This helps locate and automatically scans the .QBB and .QBW file extensions in your device.

If the same thing happens, another option is to manually search for the files using File Explorer. You can check out the steps in the article: Find QuickBooks company data files and backups.

For any further queries when restoring QuickBooks files, feel free to reply in the comments below.

You need to restore the backup file (*.qbb) on your QB Desktop first. Once the company file is restored, QB will create a new QBW file.

I too am trying to restore QuickBooks to my computer.  I have the program and I saved Back-ups as QBW files.

I have the pop-up that says "No Company Open".  I click "Open or Restore existing company".

Because I have a QBW file, I choose "Open a company file", I find the last back-up I had, click on it and click Open.

I then get an error "Some types of QuickBooks files must be imported or restored, and cannot be opened directly.  QuickBooks can only open the following types of files: QBW, QBA.  And that's it.  How do I restore my last backup??