How to Download Your Raw DNA Data From 23andMe, AncestryDNA, MyHeritage, FamilyTreeDNA, Living DNA and WeGene (2026)

All six providers covered here let you download the raw genotype file behind your results from your account, at no charge. 23andMe and AncestryDNA email a link after a request, MyHeritage emails a link that lasts 24 hours, FamilyTreeDNA and Living DNA download on the spot. The file is a text table of roughly 600,000 to 750,000 lines on genome build 37. Store it encrypted; it never expires.

Why download the file now#

The file is the one part of your test that is yours to keep; the reports, the matches and the account exist only as long as the company does. 23andMe filed for Chapter 11 in March 2025 and was bought out of bankruptcy by TTAM Research Institute, the nonprofit led by Anne Wojcicki, in July 2025; our review of the bankruptcy has the timeline and the download-then-delete guide covers the account afterwards. MyHeritage stopped accepting other companies' files in August 2025, FamilyTreeDNA changed its test in March 2026, and AncestryDNA's export is reported to have shrunk the same month. It is also the input for tools that read it on your own device, such as our generator, which parses it in the browser tab and uploads nothing; the security page shows how to verify that.

The six providers at a glance#

Row counts: Ancestry's FAQ, MyHeritage's knowledge base, FamilyTreeDNA's Family Finder FAQ, Living DNA's 2018 chip announcement, WeGene's shop; 23andMe does not publish a count, and the v5 files we have seen hold about 640,000 lines. Waits: the help pages linked below and Gene Food (updated 15 September 2026). All checked 14 October 2026; counts vary by chip version.

23andMe#

The official article is Accessing Your Raw Genetic Data (checked 14 October 2026). The steps, as given there and by Gene Food:

1. Sign in at 23andme.com, open the profile menu at the top right and choose Settings.
2. Scroll to 23andMe Data and click View.
3. Confirm the profile's date of birth.
4. Read the notes, tick the acknowledgement and click Submit request.
5. Wait for the email "Your 23andMe raw data download is ready!", open its link, confirm the birthdate again and download.

23andMe's article lists three ways to reach the same request page: the direct link you.23andme.com/tools/data/, the profile menu's Resources then Browse Raw Genotyping Data then Download, and the Settings route above. It says the file is usually ready in about a week, sometimes thirty days. Gene Food reports an instant download through the Browse Raw Genotyping Data route, while Genetic Lifehacks describes the same request and email (Genetic Lifehacks, updated 14 July 2025). Either way you get one .zip holding a tab-separated .txt whose name begins with genome and whose comment lines state the build; 23andMe's reference genome article says its genotypes refer to the plus strand of GRCh37 by default (checked 14 October 2026).

AncestryDNA#

Ancestry's article Downloading DNA Data (checked 14 October 2026) gives the steps; SelfDecode's guide (updated 24 July 2026, checked the same day) shows the way in from the DNA tab.

1. Sign in, open the DNA tab, choose Your DNA Results Summary and click Settings at the top right (or open DNA Settings directly from Ancestry's article) and select the test to download.
2. Scroll to Download or Delete and click Download DNA data.
3. Tick the acknowledgement, click Continue and verify with your current password or a code sent by email.
4. Wait for the email, up to 24 hours, without submitting again: only the latest link works.
5. Open the email and click Download DNA Data; the link works once and expires after a week. Click Download DNA Data again on the page that opens.

You receive dna-data-(date).zip containing AncestryDNA.txt, with allele1 and allele2 columns, no-calls as 0, positions on the forward strand of GRCh37, all as Ancestry's article states. Count the rows: Ancestry's FAQ says over 700,000 locations, but Genetic Lifehacks reports that files downloaded since March 2026 cover 44% of the SNPs it tracks, down from 78% (Genetic Lifehacks, updated 28 March 2026, checked 14 October 2026); we have not confirmed this on a file of our own.

MyHeritage#

MyHeritage's article How do I download my raw DNA data file from MyHeritage? (checked 14 October 2026):

1. Sign in, hover over DNA and choose Manage DNA kits.
2. Click the three dots to the right of the kit and choose Download.
3. Click Continue, accept the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, and click Continue again.
4. Open the email MyHeritage sends and click its link, valid for 24 hours.
5. Re-enter your password and click Download.

Only the kit manager can download, on a computer or Android device, and only for kits tested by MyHeritage; an uploaded kit has to be fetched from its original provider. The downloads we have seen are a .zip holding MyHeritage_raw_dna_data.csv, comma-separated with a RESULT column; our guide to reading a raw DNA file shows the layout.

FamilyTreeDNA#

The article Downloading Your Family Finder Data (checked 14 October 2026) requires two-factor authentication before the download is offered.

1. Turn on two-factor authentication in your account settings.
2. Open Results & Tools, then Autosomal DNA, then Download Raw Data.
3. Choose Build 37 Concatenated Raw data: all autosomal SNPs including the X chromosome, positions on GRCh37.
4. The .csv.gz downloads at once.

Windows and macOS extractors do not open GZ archives, the article notes; 7-Zip does, and our generator reads .gz as is. Transferred kits have no download. Samples received from March 2, 2026 are sequenced instead of chip-typed; the NGS FAQ says downloads keep the same format and "substantially the same set" of SNPs (checked 14 October 2026).

Living DNA#

Living DNA's article How do I download my raw data? (checked 14 October 2026) says the download is free and covers autosomal, mtDNA and Y-DNA.

1. Sign in at my.livingdna.com, click your name at the top right and open Profiles.
2. Select the profile, then click Download next to its name.
3. Read the consent notice and tick the box.
4. Pick the autosomal (family ancestry) raw data file, which Living DNA says to use on other sites; the mtDNA and Y-DNA files are not read by raw-data tools.

It is a .txt in 23andMe's four-column layout, read by the same parser in our generator; the article does not name the build, so check the comment lines. The version 2 "Sirius" chip carries 759,757 autosomal markers (Living DNA, October 2018).

WeGene#

WeGene sells a microarray kit of "about 750k SNPs" and a whole-genome kit (wegene.com, checked 14 October 2026). SNPedia notes, in an entry dating from 2016, that the raw genotype file can be downloaded from the website (SNPedia, checked 14 October 2026), but WeGene publishes no English help page we could verify, so the path is approximate:

1. Sign in at wegene.com or in the app and open your sample's data page.
2. Find the raw data download (labelled 原始数据下载, "raw data download", in the Chinese interface) and save the .txt. If it is missing, write to service@wegene.com.

The export follows the 23andMe layout and our generator reads it with the same parser; whole-genome output is not a raw genotype file.

How to check the file is complete#

• Open it in a text editor, not a spreadsheet, which reformats values.
• Read the header. Comment lines starting with # name the company and, for 23andMe and MyHeritage, the build.
• Count the rows (wc -l on a Mac, the last line number in Notepad++ on Windows). Expect roughly 600,000 to 750,000; a few thousand lines is a summary, not the raw data.
• Scroll to the end. 23andMe files run through chromosomes 1 to 22, then X, Y and MT; Ancestry uses 23 to 26. A file that stops mid-chromosome is a broken download.
• No-calls are normal. -- or 0 0 on a few thousand lines means unread positions, not damage.

Our guide to reading a raw DNA file explains each column, strand and build. On our account page the file is unpacked on your device and the provider detected; nothing leaves the browser tab.

Where to store it#

Two encrypted copies in two places: the .zip in an encrypted disk image, a 7-Zip AES-256 archive or a password-manager vault behind a passphrase you do not reuse, one copy offline on a USB stick and one in a cloud account, encrypted before upload. Do not email the file to yourself, leave it in Downloads or upload it anywhere to "see if it works"; tools that read it on your own device, including ours, need no upload.

Next step#

With the file on your device you can generate a health report from your account in the browser tab, with nothing uploaded; the sample report shows what one credit ($5, no subscription) produces.

FAQ#

Can I download my raw DNA data if I deleted my account?

No. 23andMe's privacy statement says deletion "cannot be canceled, undone, withdrawn, or reversed" (23andMe, updated 17 October 2025) and MyHeritage calls kit deletion "irreversible" (MyHeritage), both checked 14 October 2026. The lab archive 23andMe keeps for legal reasons is not accessible to you. Download first, delete second.

Why is my download delayed?

Because most providers build the file on request. 23andMe says about a week, sometimes thirty days. AncestryDNA's email can take 24 hours and its link lasts seven days. MyHeritage's link lasts 24 hours. Check the spam folder, do not resubmit while waiting, and if a link has expired, start the request again.

Is the raw data the same for ancestry-only kits?

Yes. Each company runs every sample through the same assay, chip or sequencing panel, and the raw file is its output, not the reports you paid for. SNPedia notes that 23andMe's ancestry-only kit produces the same Promethease report as its health kit (SNPedia, checked 14 October 2026). Which positions are present depends on the assay version, not on the kit.

Zip or txt: which file do I need?

Keep the archive as downloaded. Our generator and most tools accept .zip, .gz, .txt and .csv and unpack the archive on your device. Extract a copy only to inspect it, do not rename the extension, and do not save it from a spreadsheet. If a tool refuses the archive, give it the extracted text file.

Does the raw file include health SNPs?

Partly. The chip reads a fixed list of positions; many studied variants, APOE's rs429358 and rs7412 among them, sit on the major chips, but coverage differs: Genetic Lifehacks counts 65% of its tracked SNPs on 23andMe v5, 58% on MyHeritage and 44% on AncestryDNA files from March 2026 on. A report can only show rows your file contains; see the sample report.