Your 23andMe raw data file contains roughly 600,000 to 700,000 genetic markers, and 23andMe’s own reports only scratch the surface of what that data can tell you. By downloading your raw data file and uploading it to third-party tools, you can find more relatives, get detailed health risk reports, learn how your body may respond to medications, and even contribute to scientific research.
How to Download Your Raw Data
Log into your 23andMe account, go to Settings, and look for the option to download your raw data. You’ll get a zipped text file containing your genotype information, essentially a long list of genetic markers and which variant you carry at each one. This file is what third-party tools need. Save it somewhere secure on your computer, since it contains sensitive genetic information that can’t be changed like a password.
Find More Relatives Through Genealogy Databases
GEDmatch is the most widely used genealogy tool for raw DNA uploads, with access to more than 1.5 million DNA profiles from people who originally tested with different companies like Ancestry, MyHeritage, and FamilyTreeDNA. If you’re looking for biological relatives who didn’t test with 23andMe, this is the fastest way to expand your reach. GEDmatch also lets you compare specific chromosome segments with matches, which is useful for adoptees or anyone building a detailed family tree.
MyHeritage and FamilyTreeDNA also accept raw data uploads and will match you against their own user databases. Each platform has a different pool of users, so uploading to multiple sites increases your chances of finding connections. DNA.Land, another popular option, provides additional ancestry breakdowns and population-level comparisons beyond what 23andMe offers.
Get Deeper Health and Disease Risk Reports
Promethease is the go-to tool for health-focused analysis. In a large study of third-party tool users, 97% of Promethease users said they received information about their risk for specific diseases, and 92% said they received broader health information. The tool cross-references your genetic variants against SNPedia, a curated database of published research linking specific markers to health conditions. The result is a detailed report covering hundreds of traits and conditions, from cardiovascular risk to carrier status for inherited diseases.
Genetic Genie and Livewello are two other platforms strongly associated with people seeking disease-specific risk information. Genetic Genie focuses on methylation and detoxification pathways, which some people use to explore how their body processes certain nutrients and environmental compounds. Livewello generates customizable reports that let you search for specific gene variants related to conditions you’re interested in.
Medication Response (Pharmacogenomics)
Some tools can analyze your raw data to predict how you might metabolize certain medications. Platforms like PharmCAT and Virtual Pharmacist interpret genetic variations that affect drug effectiveness, optimal dosing, and risk of side effects. These tools draw from clinical pharmacogenomics databases to identify whether you carry variants associated with faster or slower processing of common drug categories, including pain medications, antidepressants, and blood thinners.
This type of information can be genuinely useful if you’ve ever had an unexpected reaction to a medication or found that a standard dose didn’t work for you. That said, these results are best treated as a conversation starter with your prescriber rather than a definitive guide.
The False Positive Problem
Before you act on anything a third-party tool tells you, know this: a study published in Genetics in Medicine found that 40% of variants reported in consumer raw data were false positives. When researchers took variants flagged in raw data files and confirmed them with clinical-grade sequencing, four out of ten didn’t hold up. Of those false positives, 94% were in cancer-related genes.
This happens because consumer genotyping chips like the one 23andMe uses aren’t designed to detect rare, high-impact mutations with the same accuracy as clinical genetic tests. They’re built to scan common variants across the genome quickly and affordably. When a third-party tool flags a rare pathogenic variant in your raw data, the chance it’s a real finding is roughly a coin flip. Any result that suggests you carry a serious disease-related mutation should be confirmed through clinical genetic testing ordered by a healthcare provider before you make any medical decisions based on it.
Contribute Your Data to Research
If you want your genetic data to help advance science, several platforms let you donate it. OpenSNP is a free, open-source database where you can publish your genetic data alongside information about your traits and health. Researchers worldwide can access this data to study connections between genetic variants and observable characteristics.
The Personal Genome Project takes a similar approach, collecting both genetic and health data from volunteers who consent to making their information publicly available. PatientsLikeMe offers a more condition-specific option, allowing people with particular illnesses to share data and track their health alongside others with similar diagnoses. Some subsets of PatientsLikeMe data have been used in published research studies.
Privacy Risks Worth Knowing About
Every time you upload your raw data to a third-party platform, you’re handing over information that is permanent, uniquely identifying, and shared with your biological relatives. A few things to consider before you click “upload.”
- Law enforcement access: If you upload data to public databases like GEDmatch, that information is available to law enforcement. Even platforms that promise not to share your data may be legally required to disclose it in response to a court order or warrant.
- Your relatives are affected too: Because you share DNA with family members, uploading your data has privacy implications for people who never consented to sharing theirs.
- Company changes: If a third-party service is sold or goes out of business, its privacy policies may change. Data you uploaded under one set of rules could end up governed by entirely different ones.
- Secondary uses: Some platforms use uploaded data for internal research, share it with pharmaceutical companies, or sell aggregated datasets. Check whether you can opt out, and whether opting out actually deletes your data or just removes it from future sharing.
Before uploading anywhere, look for clear answers on the platform’s site: Can you delete your data later? Who owns it once uploaded? Will you be notified if privacy policies change? If a service doesn’t answer these questions clearly, that tells you something.
A Practical Starting Point
If you’re mainly interested in ancestry and finding relatives, start with GEDmatch and one or two other genealogy platforms. If health information is your priority, Promethease gives you the most comprehensive single report for a modest fee. For medication insights, pharmacogenomics tools can surface useful patterns, but treat the results as preliminary. And whatever you do, remember that 40% false positive rate: consumer raw data is a starting point for exploration, not a clinical diagnosis.