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0 @G@ GUIDE  ·  1 SOUR Family Tree Maker

Export a GEDCOM from Family Tree Maker.

Family Tree Maker's native .ftm files only open in FTM — GEDCOM is how your research leaves the program, whether you're sharing with a relative, switching software, or just making a portable backup. The export is under the File menu on both Windows and Mac.

  1. Open File → Export

    With your tree open, choose File → Export from the menu bar. The export dialog appears.

  2. Choose who to include

    Pick Entire file to export everyone, or Selected individuals to export just a branch — useful when sharing one side of the family. You can also choose whether to privatise living people.

  3. Set the output format to GEDCOM

    In the Output format dropdown, choose GEDCOM 5.5 rather than an FTM backup format. If a character set option is offered, pick UTF-8 — it keeps names like Åström, Müller, and Sørensen intact in every modern program. (Older FTM versions default to ANSEL, which is also fine: good readers, including the tools on this site, decode ANSEL fully.)

  4. Save the .ged file

    Click OK, choose where to save it, and FTM writes the .ged file. That single text file is your whole tree — people, families, events, notes, and source citations.

Media doesn't travel in the file: GEDCOM stores references to your photos and documents, not the images themselves. If the destination needs media, copy the media folder alongside the .ged, or use FTM's direct Ancestry sync instead. FTM's exact menus vary slightly between versions (2017, 2019, 2024), but File → Export has been the route in all of them.

Got the .ged file? Open it.

Drop it into the free viewer to explore every person, chart, and place — or convert it straight to PDF, Excel, or a shareable web page. Everything runs in your browser; nothing is uploaded.

Open the viewerBrowse the tools

Check the export before you share it

Two minutes of checking saves an awkward re-send: open the .ged in the free viewer to confirm the right people made it (especially after a “Selected individuals” export), and run the validator to catch broken links or dates before a relative's program chokes on them. If they don't use genealogy software at all, send them a self-contained web page or a printable PDF instead.