Reader Inquiry: Turn Off QuickBooks Pop-up Messages

A reader sent us an email wanting to know how to stop pop-up messages in QuickBooks. Well, while it is not possible to step every pop-up message sent from Intuit in QuickBooks, you can stop many of them.

First, you need to turn off pop-up advertising messages—a preference setting in QuickBooks Desktop versions. Because the preference I am discussing is a personal (My) preference, you do not need to be the Company Administrator to perform this task.

  • From the QuickBooks Menu, select Edit and choose Preferences
  • Select General Preferences, then My Preferences
  • You must place a check-mark in the Turn off pop-up messages for products and services preference to help prevent many of the messages you are getting
  • Make certain to Save your preference change

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Second, if you are the Company Administrator, you also can make another preference change to a Company Preference, but this must be done in Single-user Mode.

  • From the QuickBooks Menu, select Edit and choose Preferences
  • Select Service Connection, then Company Preferences (remember you must be logged in as Company Admin in Single-user Mode to do this)
  • Uncheck the preference Allow background downloading of service messages
  • Make certain to Save your preference change

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By making these two preference changes, you can substantially reduce the number of pop-up messages you receive within QuickBooks Desktop. Intuit still canl push-out some messages, especially if you are using a QuickBooks Payroll Service, and there is no preference to turn-off those messages.

About the Author

William Murphy

William (Bill) Murphy, better known as "Murph," is responsible for day-to-day technical content. He is also serves as Administrator for the Top Advisor Awards Program. Murph is an Advanced Certified ProAdvisor with over 30 years of QuickBooks consulting experience. He has more than 45 years of experience in Business, Finance and Public Accounting. For many years Murph was the “anchor” of the National Advisor Network’s online forum (now the Woodard forum) and three-time consecutive winner of the NAN Online MVP award. Murph has published numerous articles in industry publications and served as Technical Editor for Business Analysis with QuickBooks by Wiley Publishing.

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