Should You Keep Offline Copies of Your DNA Reports?

Genomics companies have shut down, merged, or changed platform access before. Even stable providers update their portals, retire old interfaces, or modify account terms.

An offline copy means your data survives regardless of what happens to the company's website.

Genomic results are relevant across a lifetime: reproductive planning, new drug prescriptions, family screening, or emerging research that reclassifies a variant you carry.

Trying to recover a report from a dormant account five years later is stressful and sometimes impossible. A local PDF takes seconds to open.

Keeping copies on your computer or an encrypted drive gives you control. You decide who sees them, where they are stored, and when they are deleted.

The key is encryption and access control. Treat offline genomic files like medical records, not like photos you would share casually.

At minimum: PDF copies of every interpreted report on your account. Ideally: raw sequencing files if available, plus a dated index of what you have and when it was exported.

Refresh your archive after any new test or when reports are updated with reclassified variants.

Export once after receiving new results, then verify the new files match what you see online. You do not need daily backups. Genomics data is static once generated.

Set a calendar reminder once a year to log in, check for new or updated reports, and add them to your archive.