Getting started

Signing in

Open the app and sign in with email, Google, or whatever provider your account uses. You only need to set this up once; Draw My Tree remembers you on the same device.

If you signed up but can't log in, double-check the email address you used. If you're still stuck, sign out and use the "Forgot password?" link on the sign-in screen.

A tree you started before signing up

A tree built without an account is kept in that browser. Signing up from it saves it to your account, and Sign in from the same page brings you back to it signed in, with Save to my account at the top. If it stayed in the browser instead (you chose Not now, or your free account already had its tree), open it again from the home page and choose Save to my account. A free account keeps one tree, so it says so if you already have one. If you chose Not now while photos for the Family Plan were waiting, it asks once more on a later day, while those photos are still in that browser, and then not again.

A free account backs up one portrait per person. Any other photos stay in that browser, and a note says how many are only there. Choosing Not now on that note never deletes them. Once you have the Family Plan, they are added to your tree by themselves the next time you open Draw My Tree in that browser, and a message counts them in. Clearing the browser's site data before then would remove them.

Your home page

After signing in you land on Your trees. It lists every family tree you own, with the ones other people have shared with you in their own group beside it (below it on a narrow screen).

Your trees, with the most recent tree drawn large and suggestions of what to add next — Your trees, with the tree you edited last at the top.

Most recent leads the page with a picture of the tree you edited last, drawn in its own look. Open it, share it or make a print from there. Under What to add next are a few suggestions, such as finding someone's parents or adding a birth date; each opens the tree at the person it names.
Your other trees lists the rest, each with a small picture, how many people it holds and when it was last edited. Click a tree's name to open it. New tree sits beside this heading.
Search and Sort appear once you have more than six trees of your own. Search finds trees by name as you type; Sort orders them by most recently edited, by name, or by most people.
Shared with you lists trees someone has invited you to, with whether you can edit or only view. While these are the only trees you have, a Start your own branch card offers Start a tree for one of your own, which is free. If you were invited to edit and the tree's Family Plan has ended, it says editing is paused: you can still view the tree and export it (a picture, or the JSON copy), and editing comes back when the plan does.
Trash, where deleted trees wait for 30 days, is in your account menu at the top right. To begin a tree again without deleting it, choose Start over in its ⋮ menu: everyone in it moves to Trash, and the tree keeps its look, its shares and a Keepsake bought for it.

Creating your first tree

Press New tree beside Your other trees (or Your trees, before you have one). Give the tree a name (something like "Prescott family" or "Mom's side"), then choose where it starts from:

Blank tree opens the new tree empty, ready for its first person.
Import a file opens the new tree with Import ready for a GEDCOM or JSON file you exported from Ancestry, MyHeritage, FamilySearch or another app. See Import a GEDCOM.

You can rename a tree later. Some people keep one tree per branch of their family, others put everyone into a single tree. A free account holds one tree without a Keepsake; once you have it, the page says so under New tree, with a link to compare plans. Pressing New tree then names your tree and offers to keep building it, or to get it a Keepsake: the next screen lists what the Keepsake adds and its price, and the payment itself is on Polar's page, which brings you back afterwards. Once that tree has a Keepsake, your next tree is free.

Opening a tree

Click a tree's name to open it. Each tree you own also has a ⋯ menu with Share, Rename and Delete. You'll land in the tree editor.

The editor has four main parts:

The tree editor: the toolbar along the top, the rail down the left edge and the family tree on the canvas — The tree editor on a computer, with the Whitfield family, an invented example.

The canvas, which fills the window and holds the drawn tree; everything else floats over it. Scroll or pinch to zoom; click-and-drag the background to pan. The view controls in the bottom-right corner zoom in and out, show the zoom (press the percentage to return to 100%), fit the whole tree, open the overview map, and go full screen. The overview map is off until you press its button; it gives you the whole tree in miniature and lets you jump to a far corner without manual panning. On a phone the corner keeps just the fit button, and you pinch to zoom.
The toolbar along the top, with a back button, the tree's name and its ⋮ menu (Insights and Make a print; saving a version and Yearly editions; the Keepsake on a tree without one; Help with these docs, the keyboard shortcuts, a contact link and the legal pages; and last the tree's own actions, such as Start over and Delete tree), a search box in the middle that finds people, actions, and settings (Ctrl/⌘ + K opens it from anywhere), then undo and redo, and Share on trees you own (and on trees you edit, while the owner lets editors publish). A tree with more than one version also names the one on screen beside its name. On a phone the top row keeps the back button, the tree's name, undo and Share (or Sign up on a guest tree), and everything else is in one menu, More at the end of the bottom bar: search, the panels the bar has no room for, then This tree (any tree issues, redo, Make a print, the versions and the tree's own actions) and You (notifications, your account and Help). A dot on More means something in it wants a look. On a larger screen a guest tree also shows a small status mark after its name: select it to see where the tree is kept.
The rail, a strip of labelled buttons that is always on screen: down the left edge on a computer, along the bottom on a phone or any screen taller than it is wide (a monitor turned on its side, a tablet held upright), where the panel opens as a sheet above it. Each button opens the side panel on one surface: Details (details and story for whoever you've selected), People, Filter, Look (saved presets and every visual setting), Export, and, on trees you own or edit, Import (an editor merges a file in; replacing the whole tree is the owner's). Filter shows a mark while any filter is on. On a phone the bar keeps five buttons at most, and More holds the rest along with everything the top row leaves out. The button for the panel that is open is highlighted; press it again to close the panel.
The side panel, which opens beside the rail and shows one surface at a time. The tree moves aside to keep whoever you've selected in view.

Two phone screens: the Look panel and a person's details, each open as a sheet over the tree, with the rail along the bottom — On a phone the rail runs along the bottom and each panel opens as a sheet over the tree.

A brand-new tree is empty. Building your tree covers adding the first person.

Once it has people in it, Make a print in the tree's ⋮ menu walks you from the tree to a file for a print shop in four steps: who to include, which chart, what paper size, then a check and the download. See Make a print.

Keyboard and mouse

Scroll wheel / pinch: zoom in and out
Click and drag on empty canvas: pan around
Click a person card: select them and open the details panel
Click empty space: clear the selection
Press ? on the tree page, or open Help › Keyboard shortcuts, for the full list of keyboard shortcuts: zoom (+/-), pan (arrow keys), fit the tree (Ctrl/⌘ + 0, or the fit button beside the zoom controls), full screen (F), clear filters and selection (R, with an Undo straight after), find anything (Ctrl/⌘ + K, or /), and show or hide the side panel (P)
Moving through the tree by keyboard: Skip to the tree, the first link on the page, takes you to the tree. There the arrow keys move between people by where they sit, and Alt (⌥ on a Mac) with an arrow follows the family lines: up to a parent, down to a first child, and left or right to a sibling or partner. See Accessibility
Single-key shortcuts: F, R, P, ?, /, + and - do nothing on their own until you turn on Single-key shortcuts at the top of Keyboard shortcuts or under This device only in Look, so a key pressed by accident never changes the tree. The shortcuts that use Ctrl/⌘ always work.