File formats

GEDCOM and GEDZIP, explained.

  1. 01

    GEDCOM .ged

    The genealogy standard. A plain-text file describing people and how they connect.

    GEDCOM is the interchange format nearly every genealogy service and desktop application can read and write. It is ordinary text, so it stays readable decades from now and does not depend on any company continuing to exist.

    It carries the structure of your research: people, families, relationships, dates, places, notes, and source references. opentree press writes GEDCOM 5.5.1 encoded as UTF-8.

    What it does not carry is your photographs. A GEDCOM can only point at media by file path — it cannot contain the image bytes themselves. That is the gap GEDZIP closes.

  2. 02

    GEDZIP .gdz or .zip

    A GEDCOM and its media, packaged together in one ordinary zip file.

    A GEDZIP is a standard zip archive containing one GEDCOM at the root plus the media it references, stored at relative paths inside the same archive. Because the paths resolve within the zip, the record and the photographs stay connected.

    It is still just a zip file. You can open it with the tools already on your computer, and any genealogy application that understands GEDZIP can import it whole.

    opentree press reads GEDZIP on import and writes it on export, so a tree can arrive and leave with its media intact.

Leaving with your work

Two ways to take it all with you.

Both downloads are yours at any time. Choose GEDZIP when another application has to read it; choose the full archive when you want everything opentree press knows.

DetailGEDZIP exportFull family archive
Best forImporting into another genealogy toolKeeping a complete copy of your own work
Genealogy recordgedcom.ged — GEDCOM 5.5.1, UTF-8family-tree.ged — GEDCOM 5.5.1, UTF-8
MediaEvery stored asset, at relative pathsEvery stored asset, under media/
InventoryNone — kept clean for portabilitymanifest.json with SHA-256 checksums for every file
Also includedNothing elseCaptions and adjustments, whether an image was uploaded, upscaled, or generated, research notes, external tree links, and a README.txt
Opens withAny GEDZIP-aware genealogy applicationAny zip tool; the GEDCOM inside opens anywhere

A few honest details.

Imported photographs may not come across
A GEDCOM from another service references media by file path, and those files often are not in the export. When the bytes never reached opentree press, we cannot archive them — the full archive lists those unresolved references by name so you know what is missing rather than discovering it later.
What is never in an export
No account credentials, no collaboration invitations, and no temporary download links. An archive is your family record, not a copy of your account.
Importing accepts all three
Bring a plain .ged file, or a GEDZIP as .gdz or .zip. Media found inside an archive is attached to the right people on the way in.

Open by design

Bring it in. Take it out.
Whenever you like.

Start your family tree