Family Tree Maker won't open
Before you reinstall anything, find out what's actually broken. Start Family Tree Maker and create a small empty test tree. If the empty tree opens, the program is fine and your tree file is the problem. Those two faults need completely different repairs. That one test saves most people an unnecessary reinstall.
- Applies to
- FTM 2024 · 2019 · 2017 · 2014
- Platform
- Windows & Mac
- Time
- ~40 min
- Updated
A program that won't start has not deleted your research. Your tree lives in its own file, in its own folder, entirely separate from the software. Uninstalling, reinstalling and resetting Family Tree Maker do not touch it. Whatever happens below, the genealogy is still on the disk.
How a launch failure looks
Launch failures look different depending on what's gone wrong, and the difference matters:
- You double-click the icon and nothing at all happens. No window, no error.
- The splash screen appears, then vanishes before the program loads.
- It opens, then closes the moment it tries to reopen your last tree.
- A message says the program was closed improperly last time.
- It hangs on a white or grey window and never finishes loading.
- It launches fine, but only when you don't open your usual tree.
- You have several Family Tree Maker icons on the desktop and none of them opens anything.
Why Family Tree Maker won't start
Six causes account for nearly every launch failure we're asked about. They split cleanly into two groups, and knowing which group you're in halves the work:
| Cause | Tell-tale sign | Group | Go to |
|---|---|---|---|
| Damaged tree file | An empty test tree opens perfectly; yours doesn't | File | Fix 6 |
| Corrupted settings file | Closes instantly, no error, nothing in the window | Program | Fix 3 & 4 |
| Permission problem | Started after a Windows update or a new user account | Program | Fix 2 |
| Damaged search-hint cache | Hangs on a blank window rather than closing | Program | Fix 5 |
| Failed or partial update | Worked yesterday, an update ran overnight | Program | Fix 6 |
| Memory pressure | Only fails when other heavy programs are running | System | Fix 2 |
Fix 1 — Find out whether it's the program or the file
First, check you're clicking the program and not a folder. Support threads turn this up constantly: someone ends up with four or five Family Tree Maker icons on the desktop, and only one of them is the program. The others are the tree's own media folder, an automatic backup folder, and a leftover shortcut from a previous version. Folders open nothing when you double-click them from the desktop, which reads exactly like a program that won't start. A quick tell is size: the program's shortcut is a couple of kilobytes, while a tree or backup folder runs to hundreds of megabytes and contains hundreds of files. Open Family Tree Maker from the Start menu or Applications folder instead, then open your tree from inside it.
Do this first The empty tree test
Almost every guide online jumps straight to reinstalling. That's the wrong move if your tree file is the problem, because a reinstall won't touch it and you'll be back where you started an hour later. This test tells you which repair you actually need.
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Start Family Tree Maker without letting it reopen your usual tree. If it reopens the last tree automatically and crashes, hold the keyboard shortcut for bypassing startup items, or rename your tree file temporarily so it can't be found.
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If the program loads, create a new, empty tree called something like
Test. Add one person to it. -
Read the result:
- Empty tree works, yours doesn't → the program is healthy. Your file is damaged. Skip to Fix 6.
- Nothing opens at all → the program is the problem. Work through Fixes 2 to 5 in order.
Fix 2 — Restart, and run as administrator
Quickest win Clear the lock and grant write access
Family Tree Maker writes to its own settings every time it starts. If a previous session didn't shut down cleanly, or a Windows update tightened permissions on the folder it writes to, that write fails and the program gives up silently.
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Restart the computer properly. Not sleep, and not a shutdown with fast startup. A genuine restart clears any lock left over from a crashed session.
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Close anything memory-hungry: browsers with many tabs, photo editors. Family Tree Maker loading a large tree wants real memory, and starving it produces a silent failure that looks like a broken install.
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Windows: right-click the Family Tree Maker icon and choose . If it opens this way and not otherwise, you've found your answer. It is a permissions problem, not a damaged program.
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Mac: quit fully with rather than closing the window, then reopen from Applications rather than the Dock.
Fix 3 — Reset to factory default settings
Common cause Throw away a corrupted preference
Family Tree Maker remembers window positions, panel layouts and which tree you had open. A crash sometimes leaves that data half-written. The program then fails while reading it back, before it ever draws a window. That's the classic "opens and closes instantly" symptom.
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Make sure Family Tree Maker is completely closed. On Windows check the system tray; on Mac quit properly.
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Hold down the SHIFT key and open Family Tree Maker while keeping it held. A Startup Options window appears that you never normally see.
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Select Reset program settings to defaults, then click OK.
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Let it open with default settings. Your layout preferences are gone; your genealogy is untouched.
Don't panic at the empty tree list. After a reset, the Plan workspace shows no trees at all. They have not been deleted. The reset cleared the list of recently opened files, not the files themselves. Go to and reopen each tree once. You will also need to register the program again and set your preferences back.
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If it now opens, set your preferences up again and carry on. If not, move to Fix 4, which handles the same problem more bluntly.
Fix 4 — Delete the settings file by hand
When the reset won't run Remove user.config
If the program won't stay open long enough to accept a settings reset, delete the settings file directly. Family Tree Maker writes a fresh one on the next launch. This file holds interface preferences only. It contains no people, no facts and no media.
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Close Family Tree Maker completely.
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In Windows Explorer, go to this location, replacing
<user name>with yours.AppDatais hidden, so turn on hidden items first, or paste the path straight into the address bar:Users\<user name>\AppData\Local\The_Software_MacKiev_Comp\FTM.exe_StrongName -
Delete the file named
user.config. Leave everything else alone. -
Open Family Tree Maker. It rebuilds the file automatically. You'll need to set your display preferences again.
The folder name contains the version's internal identifier, so the exact FTM.exe_StrongName portion varies between releases. If you see several similar folders, the one with the most recent date is the version you're running.
Fix 5 — Clear the search-hint cache
Overlooked Empty the SearchHints folder
Family Tree Maker caches Ancestry record hints locally so it doesn't have to fetch them repeatedly. An interrupted sync can leave that cache damaged, and a damaged cache stops the program finishing its load. That shows as a hang on a blank window rather than a clean crash. Almost nobody outside the publisher's own documentation mentions this one.
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Close Family Tree Maker.
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Open your system disk, usually
C:, in Windows Explorer. -
Type
searchhintsinto the search box at the top right and let it finish searching. -
Open the SearchHints folder it finds, select everything inside, and move it to the Recycle Bin. Delete the contents, not the folder itself.
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Empty the Recycle Bin. This step matters. Leaving the files there keeps the problem alive.
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Reopen Family Tree Maker. Hints will rebuild over your next few syncs. Nothing in your tree is lost.
Fix 6 — Repair the file, or reinstall the program
Depends on Fix 1 Two different repairs. Pick the right one
Go back to what the empty tree test told you. Doing the wrong one of these wastes an afternoon.
If the empty tree opened, your file is the problem
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Copy your
.ftmfile to a separate drive before doing anything else. -
With no tree open, run , tick Perform extended analysis, and repeat until the reported reduction stops falling. Full walk-through in repairing a corrupted tree file.
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If compacting doesn't do it, restore the most recent backup made before the trouble started.
If nothing opened, the program is the problem
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Find your registration key before you uninstall. You'll need it to reinstall, and hunting for it afterwards with no working software is a miserable hour.
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Check for a pending Windows or macOS update, and for a Family Tree Maker update. A half-applied update is a common cause.
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Try a new administrator user account on the computer and launch from there. If it works in the new account, the fault is in your user profile, not the installation. That is a much smaller repair.
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Run Windows' own repair before you uninstall anything. Right-click , find Family Tree Maker in the list, then open Advanced options or Modify and choose Repair. This replaces damaged program files and leaves your trees alone. It is faster than a reinstall, and it does not ask for your registration key.
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On an older version after a Windows upgrade, try compatibility mode. Right-click the program icon, choose , tick Run this program in compatibility mode and pick Windows 7. Releases from the 2010–2012 era often stop launching after a major Windows version change and start again with this set.
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Only then uninstall and reinstall. Your tree file in Documents is not touched by this.
If none of these worked
A program that still won't launch after a clean reinstall in a fresh user account is pointing at something underneath it: the operating system, security software, or the disk itself. Two honest options:
- Go to the publisher. The publisher of Family Tree Maker runs a free support centre with version-specific articles, a support request form and free live chat around the clock. For anything involving your licence, your registration key, or a suspected bug in a particular build, they're the right destination.
- Or have someone look at it with you. Reading the crash log to see where the load is failing takes a couple of minutes with the right eyes and is very hard to talk through in writing.
Still won't start?
A 30-minute screen-share is usually enough to read the crash log and find the cause. If we can't get it opening, you don't pay.
Stopping it happening again
- Close the program properly before shutting down. A forced quit creates most corrupted settings files.
- Don't keep the tree file in a cloud-sync folder. Local drive for the tree, cloud folder for the backups.
- Keep your registration key somewhere you'll find it: printed, or in a password manager. An old inbox is not enough.
- Compact the tree twice a year, which heads off the file-side causes before they stop the program loading.
- Let big Windows updates settle before a long research session, and check the program still opens afterwards.
- Keep one backup off the machine entirely. A launch failure is survivable; a dead disk with no backup is not.
Frequently asked questions
Why does Family Tree Maker open and close immediately?
An instant close almost always means it crashed while loading something, not that it failed to start. The two usual culprits are a corrupted settings file and a damaged tree it's trying to reopen automatically. The empty tree test separates them in three minutes.
Will reinstalling Family Tree Maker delete my family tree?
No. Your tree is a separate file, normally in a Family Tree Maker folder inside Documents, and uninstalling doesn't remove it. Copy it to another drive first anyway. An uninstall routine that misbehaves is not something you want to discover afterwards.
Does Family Tree Maker still work on Windows 11?
Current versions do. Older releases can stop launching after a major Windows update changes how programs write to their own folders. If it worked until an update and then stopped, try running as administrator first. That is the usual symptom.
Do I need my registration key to reinstall?
Yes. Find it before you uninstall. You received it when you bought the software, usually by email. If it's lost, the publisher can reissue it against your purchase record. That request goes to them, not to us or any other third party.
Why does it only fail when I open one particular tree?
That points at the file rather than the program, which is good news, because damaged files are usually repairable. Run the compact routine with extended analysis until it reports no further reduction, or restore a backup from before the trouble. See the file repair guide.
Is it safe to delete the user.config file?
Yes. It stores interface preferences such as window sizes and recent trees. It holds no genealogy. Family Tree Maker builds a fresh one on the next launch. You'll spend a minute setting your display preferences again, and that's the entire cost.
Nothing happens at all when I click the icon. Is that different?
Slightly. No splash screen at all usually means the program never got as far as running. That points to a permissions problem, a blocked executable, or a broken shortcut. Try launching from the installed program folder rather than the desktop shortcut, then work through Fix 2.