Making a full manual backup of your tree file is something that you should do often. An up-to-date full backup ensures that you will be able to immediately restore your tree — including media and the link to your online tree if you have one — should something unexpectedly go wrong with your current file. For this reason you should always back up your tree file before you make any major changes like syncing, merging, updating your copy of Family Tree Maker®, and so on.
It’s also a good idea to regularly store full backups of your trees outside your computer — on an external hard drive or using a cloud storage service such as Dropbox, for example. This is a sure-fire insurance policy in the unlikely but possible event of a major hard drive crash.
Full backup files are also the safest and smoothest way of moving your tree data to Family Tree Maker on another computer.
Important: Auto-Backups made by the application do not contain media, nor do they have the information needed to relink your tree to Ancestry, so you should not rely on them as your only backups.
This article discusses the following topics:
Backing Up a Tree File in FTM 2017 and 2019 for Mac
Backing Up a Tree File in FTM 2017 and 2019 for Windows
Backing Up a Tree File in FTM 2017 and FTM 2019 for Mac
1. Make sure the tree you want to back up is open and choose File > Backup. The Backup the Tree dialog opens.
2. If you want a new name to distinguish your backup file from your original tree, type a new name in the Backup Filename field. For example, if you back up your tree to the same USB flash drive every time, and this backup file has the same name as a backup file that is already on the drive, then this backup will overwrite that original file.
3. Select one of these backup locations:
- DVD or flash drive: Select Removable media. In the pop-up menu, choose your DVD drive or flash drive.
- Hard disk: Select Location on this computer to save the backup file to the Family Tree Maker folder in your Documents folder. Click Change to select a new location for storing the backup on your hard disk.
4. Select the Media files checkbox to include all media items from the tree’s media folder.
5. Select the Historical events checkbox to include historical events you’ve created or edited for timelines.
6. Select the Web favorites checkbox to include all of the web addresses that you’ve added to the Manage Favorites list on the Web Search workspace.
7. If the tree is linked to an Ancestry tree, select the Allow restored file to resume syncing checkbox so the tree that’s restored from the backup file can be synced with the Ancestry tree if necessary.
8. Click Backup. A message tells you when the tree file has been backed up successfully.
Note: Backup files cannot be opened in other genealogy applications like GEDCOMs can. They can only be opened with the version of Family Tree Maker in which they were created or with a newer version of the app.
Backing Up a Tree File in FTM 2017 and FTM 2019 for Windows
1. Make sure the tree you want to back up is open and click File > Backup. The Backup dialog opens.
2. If you want a new name to distinguish your file from your original tree, type a new name in the Backup file name field. For example, if you back up your tree to the same USB flash drive every time, and this backup file has the same name as a backup file that is already on the drive, then this backup will overwrite that original file.
3. Select one of these backup locations:
- DVD or flash drive: Select Removable media. In the drop-down list, choose your DVD drive or flash drive.
- Hard disk: Select Working directory to save the backup file to the Family Tree Maker folder in your Documents folder.
Select Custom directory and click Change to select a new location for storing the backup on your hard disk.
4. Select the Media files checkbox to include all media items from the tree’s media folder.
5. Select the Historical events checkbox to include historical events you’ve created or edited for timelines.
6. Select the Web favorites checkbox to include all of the web addresses that you’ve added to the Manage Favorites list on the Web Search workspace.
7. If the tree is linked to an Ancestry tree, select the Allow restored file to resume syncing checkbox so the tree that’s restored from the backup file can be synced with the Ancestry tree if necessary.
8. Click Backup. A message tells you when the tree file has been backed up successfully.
Note: Backup files cannot be opened in other genealogy applications like GEDCOMs can. They can only be opened with the version of Family Tree Maker in which they were created or with a newer version of the app.