My family tree has disappeared
A tree that vanishes from Family Tree Maker's list is almost never a deleted tree. In the vast majority of cases the file is still on the drive and the software has simply lost track of where it is. Work through the seven checks below in order. Most people find their tree in the first two.
- Applies to
- FTM 2024 · 2019 · 2017 · 2014
- Platform
- Windows & Mac
- Time
- ~20 min
- Updated
Take a breath. This is recoverable far more often than it feels. For a tree to be genuinely gone, the file has to have been deleted, the recycle bin emptied, no backup made, and no copy ever synced to Ancestry. That combination is rare. Everything else is a matter of finding where the file went.
One thing not to do: don't create a new tree with the same name to "start again", and don't install or reinstall anything yet. Both can overwrite what you're trying to recover. Find the file first.
Signs the tree has moved, not vanished
- Family Tree Maker opens, but the tree isn't in the list of recent files.
- The tree opens and is completely empty, as though it were brand new.
- You get an error saying the file can't be found at its previous location.
- Everything vanished after a software update, an OS upgrade, or a new computer.
- The tree is there but shows a fraction of the people it used to have.
First, know what you're looking for
You can't search for a file if you don't know its name. Family Tree Maker uses these:
| Extension | What it is | Opens directly? |
|---|---|---|
.ftm | The tree file itself, in all modern versions. This is the one that matters. | Yes |
.ftmb | A backup, created by . | Restore it, do not open it |
.ftw | A much older Broderbund-era tree. | Needs a free converter first |
| Folder, same name | Your photographs and documents sit beside the .ftm file. | Keep it with the file |
If yours is a .ftw, see working with legacy files.
Alongside the .ftm file there's normally a folder with the same name
holding your photographs and documents. If you find the file but not the folder, your tree will open with every image showing as a broken link. That is a different problem, covered in
missing media files.
Check 1 — Search the entire computer
Start here Let the operating system find it
Don't browse folder by folder. Search the whole drive for the file extension and let the computer do the work. It looks in places you would never think to check.
-
On Windows: open File Explorer, click This PC in the sidebar, then type
*.ftmin the search box at the top right and press Enter. Let it finish. A full-drive search takes several minutes. -
On Mac: open Finder, press ⌘ + F, click This Mac, then set the search to Name ends with
.ftm. -
Look at the file size of anything you find. A real tree with a few thousand people is typically several megabytes or more. A file of a few kilobytes is an empty tree, not what you are after.
-
Sort the results by date modified. The most recently changed file is usually the one you were working in.
Check 2 — The default folder
Very common Look where the software puts trees by default
Unless you deliberately chose somewhere else, Family Tree Maker stores trees in a folder of its own inside your Documents directory. An update that clears the recent-files list leaves the tree sitting there untouched, invisible only because nothing is pointing at it.
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Open your Documents folder and look for a Family Tree Maker folder inside it.
-
Open it. You should see your
.ftmfile, a matching media folder, and often a Backups subfolder. -
Double-click the
.ftmfile directly rather than trying to open it from inside the software. This tells Family Tree Maker where it lives, and it will reappear in the list from then on.
Check 3 — Automatic backups
Often forgotten The software has often saved you already
Family Tree Maker creates its own backups, and a great many people don't realise it until the day they need one. Even if the backup is a few weeks old, recovering a tree that's slightly out of date is a vastly better position than starting over.
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Inside the Family Tree Maker folder, open the Backups subfolder.
-
Search the whole drive for
*.ftmbas well, in case a backup landed somewhere else. -
Sort by date and pick the most recent one that looks a sensible size.
-
Restore it to a new filename, not over the top of anything. If the backup turns out to be older than you hoped, you haven't destroyed your other options. Full steps in restoring from a backup.
Check 4 — Cloud sync folders
Increasingly common OneDrive, iCloud, Dropbox and Google Drive
This one has become the most common cause of a "disappeared" tree in recent years, and it catches people out completely. If a cloud service syncs your Documents folder, it has often moved the file to online-only storage to save space, or created a duplicate with a name like Smith Family (conflicted copy) after two devices edited it.
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Check whether OneDrive, iCloud Drive, Dropbox or Google Drive manages your Documents folder. On Windows this is usually obvious from the path; on Mac, check whether Desktop & Documents syncing is switched on in iCloud settings.
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Look for cloud status icons next to the file. A cloud outline means the file exists but isn't downloaded to this machine. Right-click and choose to always keep on this device.
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Search the sync folder for conflicted, conflict, or your computer's name in the filename. That is where the good version often ends up.
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Check the service's online recycle bin or version history through its website. These keep deleted files for 30 days or more, well after the local recycle bin has been emptied.
Once you've recovered it, move your tree out of a cloud-synced folder and keep it on the local drive, with backups going to the cloud instead. Live database files and continuous sync services are a poor combination.
Check 5 — Download it back from Ancestry
The safety net If you ever synced, there's a copy online
This is why syncing matters. If the tree was ever linked to Ancestry, a complete copy is sitting in your account regardless of what happened locally, and you can pull it back down into a fresh file.
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Sign in to Ancestry in a web browser and confirm the tree is listed under your trees.
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In Family Tree Maker, sign in to the same Ancestry account and choose to download a tree from Ancestry.
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Pick your tree and let it download. On a large tree with a lot of media this can take a long time. Leave it alone until it finishes.
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Check what came back carefully. The Ancestry copy reflects the last successful sync, so anything you did locally after that point won't be in it.
Check 6 — Another user account, or the old computer
Worth ruling out The file is not missing, just elsewhere
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If your computer has more than one user account, check the others. A tree saved under a different account won't show up in yours, and Windows in particular makes this easy to do by accident.
-
If you recently moved to a new computer, check the old one is still accessible. Migration tools frequently skip files inside application folders. Our guide to moving Family Tree Maker to a new computer covers the move properly.
-
Check external drives and USB sticks. People often move a tree to a drive "temporarily" and forget.
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Look in the recycle bin or Trash. Obvious, but it's caught more than one person out.
Check 7 — The cloud copy, if you subscribed
People forget they are paying for this, and it is built for precisely this moment. If you subscribe to the TreeVault cloud service, install FTM 2019 or 2024, sign in, open the workspace, and on the New Tree tab choose Emergency Tree Restore from TreeVault. Pick My Hard Drive Crashed if the machine failed; if you deleted the tree yourself, the other option routes you to the publisher's chat instead of restoring straight away.
One caveat decides how much you get back. The entry-level plan holds tree data without media, so a restore on that tier returns your people and sources and no photographs at all. Higher tiers include media.
There is also a cause worth ruling out while you are here. Renaming, moving or overwriting the tree file from outside the program breaks its link to the cloud copy, and the copy then stops updating silently. If your file went missing shortly after a tidy-up, expect the cloud copy to end on that same day.
If none of these found it
If you've been through all six and there's genuinely no .ftm file, no backup and no Ancestry
copy, then you are into file recovery rather than troubleshooting. What you do next matters a great deal. Stop using the drive. Every file written to it reduces the chance
of recovering something that was deleted.
- The publisher's support centre. For version-specific behaviour and known bugs, Software the publisher's free support centre is the right place.
- Or let someone search properly. Some recovery approaches, including shadow copies, previous versions and undelete tools, are genuinely risky to attempt from written instructions.
Can't find it anywhere?
We assess the file before we charge you anything. We tell you honestly whether the data is recoverable, and if it is not, there is no fee.
Making sure this never happens again
- Keep the tree on the local drive, not inside OneDrive, iCloud or Dropbox. Back up to the cloud instead.
- Back up after every session where you did real work, with media included.
- Keep three backups in different places: the computer, an external drive, and the cloud.
- Sync to Ancestry regularly if you use it. It's the best free insurance available.
- Write down where your tree lives. Genuinely. A note in a drawer with the full folder path has saved people years of work.
Frequently asked questions
Is my family tree gone forever?
Almost certainly not. For a tree to be permanently lost you'd need the file deleted, the recycle bin emptied, no backup anywhere, and no Ancestry copy, all at once. Most "disappeared" trees turn up in the first two checks on this page.
What file extension does Family Tree Maker use?
.ftm for the tree, with a matching folder of media alongside it. .ftmb for backups. Much older Broderbund-era trees use .ftw.
Why did my tree disappear after an update?
Updates don't delete trees, but they can clear the recent-files list. The tree is normally still sitting in its folder. Open it once by double-clicking the file itself and it comes back into the list.
My tree opens but it is empty. What happened?
That usually means something created a new blank tree in place of the original, often because a dialog got clicked through too quickly. Search the drive for other .ftm files and compare their sizes. The real one is considerably larger than the empty one.
Can I recover a tree if I never synced to Ancestry?
Yes, in most cases. Checks 1 to 4 do not involve Ancestry at all. Syncing simply gives you one more safety net. If those checks come up empty, the next avenue is your operating system's own file-versioning, which is worth attempting with help rather than alone.