Family Tree Maker won't sync with Ancestry
A Family Tree Maker sync that hangs or fails is almost always one of five things: an Ancestry-side outage, an expired sign-in token, a bloated tree file, oversized media, or a broken link between the file and the online tree. Work through them in that order — the first two solve most cases.
- Applies to
- FTM 2024 · 2019 · 2017 · 2014
- Platform
- Windows & Mac
- Time
- ~25 min
Your research is not gone. A failed sync never deletes a tree. You have two separate copies — the file on your computer and the tree on Ancestry — and a sync failure only means the two aren't talking to each other. Nothing below will put either copy at risk if you do the backup step first.
What you're probably seeing
Sync problems present in a few recognisable ways. Any of these lands you on this page:
- The sync progress bar reaches a percentage and stops, sometimes for hours.
- The spinning indicator never resolves, and the window becomes unresponsive.
- Sync starts, then fails with a message about not being able to connect.
- Family Tree Maker asks you to sign in to Ancestry over and over.
- Sync appears to complete, but changes you made don't appear on Ancestry — or vice versa.
What actually causes it
Syncing is more fragile than it looks. Family Tree Maker has to authenticate you with Ancestry, compare every person, fact, source and media item on both sides, and reconcile the differences. A failure anywhere in that chain stops the whole process. In practice the cause is nearly always one of these, and they're listed here in the order we actually encounter them:
- Ancestry-side outages. Far more common than people assume, and completely outside your control.
- An expired authentication token. The sign-in that Family Tree Maker stored has quietly lapsed.
- A bloated or lightly damaged tree file. Years of edits leave the database indexes in poor shape.
- Oversized or unsupported media. One enormous scan can stall the media stage indefinitely.
- A broken link between file and online tree. Usually after a computer change or a restore from backup.
Do this first Back up before you change anything
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In Family Tree Maker, open .
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Tick the option to include media files. A backup without media will restore your names and dates but none of your photographs or documents.
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Save it somewhere outside your Family Tree Maker folder — an external drive, or a cloud folder. A backup stored next to the original protects you from a file problem but not from a drive failure.
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Note the date in the filename. If a fix below makes things worse, this is what you come back to.
Fix 1 — Check whether the problem is even yours
Most common Rule out an Ancestry-side outage
If sync worked yesterday and fails today with nothing changed on your machine, the odds strongly favour a server-side problem. Family Tree Maker has a built-in indicator for exactly this, and most people have never noticed it.
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Look for the Sync Weather indicator in Family Tree Maker. Introduced in FTM 2017, it reports the current state of Ancestry's sync servers as a colour: green, orange or red.
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Red means an interruption with Ancestry's sync servers right now. These are usually brief — seconds, up to around five minutes. Stop and wait. No local fix will help, and unlinking your tree while Ancestry is having problems is how people create a second, worse problem on top of the first.
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Orange means service has just been restored and it stays orange for an hour before returning to green. You can sync during orange, and usually it is fine, but connections may drop mid-sync — so it is not the moment to start a large one.
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Green means no known problems. Green can also flag planned maintenance coming up, which is worth checking before you begin a long sync.
Green means no known problems, orange means service was interrupted within the last hour, and red means an interruption right now.
Fix 2 — Refresh your Ancestry sign-in
Fixes most cases Sign out and back in, inside Family Tree Maker
Family Tree Maker stores a token proving you're signed in to Ancestry. Tokens expire. When one lapses, the software often doesn't say so clearly — it just hangs, or asks you to sign in again and again. Signing out properly and back in forces a fresh token.
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Find your Ancestry account status inside Family Tree Maker and choose to sign out. Do this within the software — signing out of Ancestry in your web browser is not the same thing and won't help.
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Close Family Tree Maker completely and reopen it. On Windows, check the system tray; on Mac, quit properly rather than just closing the window.
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Sign back in with your Ancestry username and password. If you have two-factor authentication enabled, have your phone to hand.
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Try the sync again. Give it a genuine chance to run before deciding it has failed — see the timing note below.
Don't mistake "slow" for "frozen". A first sync, or one after months away, can legitimately take an hour or more on a large tree with a lot of photographs. Leave it running overnight before concluding it has hung.
Fix 3 — Compact the tree file
Often overlooked Rebuild the database indexes
Your tree is a database, and databases degrade. Years of adding, editing, merging and deleting leave behind fragmented indexes and empty space. A file in that state can sync perfectly well for months and then start stalling partway through with no obvious trigger. Family Tree Maker includes a repair routine for this that most users never run.
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With your tree open, go to .
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Accept the offer to back up before compacting if you're prompted. Yes, even though you already backed up. It costs nothing.
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Let it run without interruption. On a large tree this can take half an hour. Don't cancel it partway.
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Reopen the tree and try syncing again.
Fix 4 — Track down problem media
If it stalls at the same point Find the file that's blocking it
If your sync reliably stops at roughly the same percentage every time, that's a strong signal. It isn't a general failure — it's hitting one specific item it can't process. Almost always that's a media file: an enormous scan, an unusual format, or something with a character in its filename the sync doesn't like.
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Open the media workspace and sort your media by file size, largest first.
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Look for anything unusually large — a 200 MB TIFF scan, for example. High-resolution scans of documents are the usual culprit.
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Resize the offending file to something sensible (a 300 dpi JPEG is ample for genealogy), and re-attach it in place of the original. Keep the high-resolution version safe elsewhere.
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Check for unusual file types too. Stick to
.jpg,.pngand.pdfwhere you can. -
Sync again and watch whether it moves past the point it previously stalled at.
Fix 5 — Unlink and relink the tree
Last resort Rebuild the sync relationship from scratch
Read this before you start. Unlinking does not delete either copy of your tree. But any changes sitting on one side and not yet synced to the other will have to be reconciled by hand afterwards. If you've done a lot of work since the last successful sync, this step can cost you time even though it won't cost you data. When in doubt, have someone look at it with you first.
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Confirm your backup from earlier actually exists, and that it's a sensible file size. An 8 KB backup is not a backup.
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Note down what you've changed recently on each side, so you know what to check afterwards.
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Unlink the tree from Ancestry in Family Tree Maker.
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Close and reopen the software, then link the tree to your online tree again and allow a full sync.
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Spot-check ten or fifteen recently edited people on both sides to confirm everything reconciled.
If none of these worked
At this point you're likely looking at either a genuine software fault or a problem with your specific Ancestry account, and neither is something you can fix from your desk. Two honest options:
- Go to the publisher. The publisher of Family Tree Maker runs a free support centre with version-specific articles and a ticket system. For anything involving your licence, your purchase, or a suspected bug in a particular build, they are the correct destination.
- Or have someone look at it with you. Some sync failures only reveal themselves when you can watch the log output while it happens, which is difficult to talk someone through in writing.
Still stuck on a sync error?
A 30-minute screen-share is usually enough. We look at the sync log together and find the item that's blocking it. If we can't fix it, you don't pay.
Stopping it happening again
- Sync little and often. A sync of fifty changes almost never fails. A sync of five thousand frequently does.
- Compact the file twice a year. Put it in the calendar. It takes minutes and prevents the slow decay that causes Fix 3.
- Keep media sensible. Attach a 300 dpi JPEG to the tree and archive the giant master scan somewhere else.
- Back up before every big session, not after. A backup made after the damage isn't much use.
- Don't sync over a weak connection. A dropout mid-sync is a common way to end up needing Fix 5.
Frequently asked questions
Will I lose my family tree if the sync fails?
No. A failed sync doesn't delete data. Your tree exists in two separate places — the file on your computer and the tree on Ancestry — and a sync failure means the two aren't talking to each other, not that either copy has been erased.
How long should a Family Tree Maker sync take?
A routine sync of a few hundred changes is usually under five minutes. A first sync, or one after a long gap, can legitimately run for an hour or more on a large tree with a lot of media. Leave it running before assuming it's frozen.
Why does Family Tree Maker keep asking me to sign in to Ancestry?
Repeated sign-in prompts nearly always mean the stored token isn't persisting between sessions. The two usual causes are security software blocking Family Tree Maker from writing its settings, and older operating systems whose security certificates are out of date. More on login problems here.
Is it safe to unlink my tree from Ancestry?
Safe, provided you have a verified backup first. Unlinking doesn't delete either copy. But relinking creates a fresh sync relationship, and anything not yet synced at the moment you unlink will need reconciling by hand afterwards.
Does Family Tree Maker sync automatically?
No — syncing with Ancestry is something you start yourself. TreeVault cloud backup is a separate, paid service that does run on its own schedule, and the two get confused constantly. If you expected automatic backups and aren't getting them, you're probably thinking of TreeVault.