Opening GED Files

The GED file type is primarily associated with Genealogy Software.

GED	File extension: GED
	File type:	data file

What is a GED file?

GED files mostly belong to Genealogy Software. GED files store genealogical records in a structured text format.
This file is primarily used for managing family trees. It holds details such as individual names, relationships, and life events. The format is based on the GEDCOM standard, which many genealogy programs use to exchange data.
Key information includes:

Purpose: Storing genealogy data like family trees and individual records.

Usage: Widely used by applications such as Ancestry.com Family Trees and MyHeritage Family Tree Builder.

The format may use UTF-8 encoding, making it adaptable for international characters.
A small portion of GED files are used in Arts & Letters applications for documents or graphics, but the main role is genealogical data exchange. It is best to open these files with dedicated genealogy software to correctly display the family tree and associated records.
FilExt.com tip: If you open the file in a text editor, you can see plain text with markers for individuals and relationships. However, a specialized tool will present the data in an organized, visual family tree. Few users know that GED files might also store hidden metadata linking complex family details.

How to open a GED file

You need a suitable software like Genealogy Software to open a GED file. Without proper software you will receive a Windows message "How do you want to open this file?" or "Windows cannot open this file" or a similar Mac/iPhone/Android alert. If you cannot open your GED file correctly, try to right-click or long-press the file. Then click "Open with" and choose an application. You can also display a GED file directly in the browser:. Just drag the file onto this browser window and drop it.

Online GED Text Viewer

Choose your .ged file to view

or drag and drop it here

Online File Viewer

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How to extract texts from GED files or capture a screenshot to PDF, JPG, DOCX, TXT, ...

1. Just click the "Choose your .ged file to view" button on this page.
2. Your GED file will then be displayed in the browser.
3. Now click on "Save as..." at the top of the page.
4. Then choose the file format (e.g. JPG, PDF, DOCX, TXT, ...) you want.
5. Your file will be converted and downloaded.

GED file format:

To view or edit GED files you need to know the file format, because it determines how the data in this file is stored. A file format is determined by the file extension and signature, so JPEG images have the extension .jpg and the first bytes in the file are ÿØÿ. However, different programs can use the same file extension, and file extensions can be assigned incorrectly. Exact knowledge of the format is therefore important in order to solve problems occurring in files. Our analysis of the GED files produces the following result:

GED is not a commonly used file extension and includes different formats for different programs. The two most popular formats are as follows:

• 60% of all GED files belong to GEDCOM Family History. These files are plain text, which means they can be viewed with any text editor such as Windows Editor, Nano for Linux, and TextEdit for macOS. The files are on average 120 KB in size and range from 6 KB to 990 KB. The file type was developed 20 years ago and is still in use today. The following keywords are characteristic: 0 HEAD, 1 GEDC, 2 VERS 5.5, 2 FORM LINEAGE-LINKED, 1 SOUR Ancestry.com Family Trees, 2 CORP Ancestry.com, DATE, 1 CHAR UTF-8, TREE, INDI and 2 NAME Ancestry.com Family Trees. Such files are related to family, tree and stammbaum, and almost always comprise personal data.
• 25% of all GED files are associated with GEDCOM Family History files, which internally utilize the well-known UTF-8 format. UTF-8 is the World Wide Web's most common character encoding for Unicode. UTF-8 files can be viewed with any text editor. These files start with the 3 bytes  (hex: EF BB BF), the so called byte order mark (BOM). These files are plain text, which means they can be viewed with any text editor such as Windows Editor, Nano for Linux, and TextEdit for macOS. A typical file size is 65 KB. Several words can almost always be found in the files, e.g. 0 HEAD, CORP, SOUR, NAME, 1 GEDC, 2 FORM LINEAGE-LINKED, Family Tree, MYHERITAGE, 1 CHAR UTF-8, ADDR, 2 VERS 5.5.1 and FINDMYPAST. Such files sometimes refer to person-related data.

All other GED files (15%) have no uniform format, such as Arts and Letters Graphics. Sometimes used for export or gedcom. You can get all the details of your GED file by dragging it onto this page or by clicking the button "Choose your .ged file to view" above.