How to get your DNA file from where it is now

You do not need to know what kind of file you have. Find whoever tested your DNA below, follow the steps, and send us whatever comes out. We will work out the rest. If your service is not listed, send us the file anyway, we accept anything that comes as a VCF, and we would rather look at it than have you guess.

23andMe

A request, not a download, usually about a week, up to 30 days. Start this one first.

AncestryDNA

Same day, plus up to 24 hours for the download email.

MyHeritage DNA

Same day. Only the kit's manager can download it, and it needs a computer, not a phone.

FamilyTreeDNA

Same day. Two-factor authentication must already be turned on.

Living DNA

Same day.

Anything else

We accept a VCF from any source, named above or not. You do not need to recognise the name of your service on this page.

  1. Sign in wherever you were tested.
  2. Look for a menu called Downloads, Raw Data, My Data, Files, or Export. It is nearly always inside account settings rather than in the results themselves.
  3. Download whatever they offer. If they give you a choice, a VCF is the one we want.

What a VCF looks like: the file name ends in .vcf, or .vcf.gz if it has been compressed. Sizes vary enormously, from a few megabytes to several gigabytes, and a big file is not a problem.

If you are looking at a list of file types and are not sure, send us a screenshot and we will tell you which one to pick. This is also the path for anyone with an old Nebula Genomics file: Nebula closed its consumer service in February 2025, but a .vcf or .vcf.gz file downloaded before it closed is still accepted exactly the same way.

How to know you have the right file

Name: ends in .txt, .zip, .csv, .vcf, or .vcf.gz, the exact extension depends on which service you used, see that service's page above.
Size: anything from about 5 MB to several GB. If the file is only a few kilobytes, something went wrong and it is worth downloading again.
What it is not: a PDF report, a screenshot, a results page saved from your browser, or an ancestry breakdown. Those are the vendor's interpretation of your DNA, not your DNA. We need the underlying data file.

If you are not sure, upload it anyway. We check every file before anything is charged against it, and we will tell you within a day of your upload either way.

Sources last verified against the vendors: 2 September 2026.