Duplicate and Copy to Mine

Earlier releases labelled Duplicate Create a copy or Save as copy. Both labels are retired; the app says Duplicate everywhere.

What does a copy keep, and what does it drop?

A copy keeps the configuration and drops the history — so it is the same idea with a clean slate:

Because the results are dropped, a fresh copy has never been run: its run status reads To run until you back-test it. Nothing you then do to the copy — editing, running, deleting — reaches the original.

Which of the two you get depends on who owns the item, not on what you want to do with it.

What does Duplicate do?

Duplicate makes an independent copy of an item you already own — a variant of your own strategy, a second screener that starts from the first. It appears as Duplicate in the item's title menu, its row menu, and its page header, and it is the only copy action offered on something in your own library.

Duplicate is not the same as Save as new screener, the button in a Fin suggestion review — that saves a suggested set of filters as a separate screener instead of overwriting yours.

What does Copy to Mine do?

Copy to Mine copies an item from the Public tab into your own library, and it is the only way to get an editable version of a Public item. The Public original is never touched — you are working on your own copy from the moment it lands.

It refuses to run on anything else: use it on an item you already own and the app answers Copy to Mine is only available for Public items. That refusal is the clean statement of the split — Public items get Copy to Mine, your own items get Duplicate.

Why does Fincanva sometimes refuse to copy a strategy?

A copy is refused when the source holds zero components — not one, zero. Fincanva never lets you build or save a strategy at zero components, so the only way to reach this state is a handful of older documents that predate that guarantee; you cannot create one yourself. Trying Duplicate or Copy to Mine on one answers: Nothing to copy: this strategy does not hold the minimum of 1 strategy, so the copy could not be saved or run.

Duplicate has a second refusal, and it is about your plan rather than the source. A copy is a new strategy, so it is checked like one: if the source is benchmarked against one of your own portfolios and your plan does not include that, Duplicate refuses rather than creating a strategy you would not be allowed to set up yourself. Detaching a component from a Combined into its own strategy is checked the same way, for the same reason. A public item is normally benchmarked against a market benchmark, which every plan includes. Whatever benchmark a copy arrives with, it keeps running; what you cannot do is point it at one of your own portfolios again unless your plan includes them. See benchmark for which portfolios each plan may use.

And a copy is counted like any other new strategy. Each strategy you copy with Duplicate or Copy to Mine adds one to the strategies you hold, so a copy is refused once you are already at your plan's limit: one more would take you past what the plan allows. The Public original is untouched and nothing is created. Deleting a strategy you no longer need, or moving to a plan that allows more, is what makes room. See plan limits for what your plan allows.

The zero-component refusal exists because a copy carries the source's components over unchanged: copying a zero-component source would produce a strategy that renders but can never be saved or run, with no way to fix it afterwards. A source with one component is not affected — an Incomplete Combined copies exactly like any other strategy; only zero holds the copy back.

Why is a screener copy refused when it holds too many filters?

A screener copy is refused when the source holds more filter rows than the limit allows. Duplicate and Copy to Mine are both checked this way, and the app answers One of the screeners you're copying holds more filters than your Free plan allows, so it can't be copied — nothing was created., naming the plan you are on. Nothing is created.

The limit is the same on every plan, and no upgrade raises it. The sentence names the plan you are on, but changing plan will not let the copy through — there is no higher figure to buy. See Screener for the figure itself and for what happens to a screener you already hold that is over it.

Nothing is trimmed to make it fit, and that is deliberate. A copy that quietly dropped the filters over the limit would screen a different set of instruments from the one you asked to copy, under the same name, with nothing telling you so.

The source is never changed by the refusal. A screener you already hold that is over the limit keeps working and keeps its rows — see plan limits for what your plan allows and what happens to items you already hold.

Where does the "Created from" line come from?

The muted Created from {sources} — {date} line is provenance for a Combined: it appears when a Combined strategy was built out of existing strategies, and it names them and the date. A plain Duplicate or Copy to Mine does not stamp it — a copy carries no recorded link back to what it was copied from, and the only trace is the name the app suggests.

Defaults in Fincanva

• The suggested name is the original's name with (copy) appended, and you can replace it before committing.
• A copy uses the last saved version of the source, so unsaved edits are excluded — save before copying if you want them in.
• On success the app confirms with Copy created.
• A copy always starts with Live off, whichever way you made it, so it never joins your live book by accident (see Mark Live).
• Any copy's name is auto-adjusted if it would collide with a strategy already in the folder it lands in: Fincanva appends (1), (2) and so on. This applies to Duplicate as well as Copy to Mine, and to the name you type yourself in the prompt — two strategies in one folder can never share a name.

Worked example

You own a strategy called "Momentum EU" and want to try a monthly rebalance without losing the quarterly version. You choose Duplicate; the prompt offers "Momentum EU (copy)" and you rename it to "Momentum EU monthly". The copy appears at the top level of Mine with every setting from the last saved "Momentum EU" — same instruments, same allocation, same benchmark — but with no results at all, so its status reads To run.

You change the cadence to monthly, save, and back-test. You now have two independent strategies with comparable settings and separate result histories. "Momentum EU" never moved, was never re-run, and if it happened to be followed Live, the copy did not inherit that.