Ensure that your file is in a format we support

IGB can open and read nearly all of the common data and graph files used with genomics data. For more information about supported file types, please see  File Formats. We also take requests - if you would like us to support a new type of file format, please let us know.

Click Load Data button

IGB allows you to open files from your desktop, local servers, URLs or other data sources.

However, IGB will not instantly start loading the data into the display. 

When you open files, IGB adds them to the list of opened files in the Data Management table in the Data Access tab. Note that the Data Management table lists a Load Mode for each opened file or data set. By default, IGB adds most files and data sets using the Region in View load mode. Data sets and files with load mode Region in View will load into the main data display when you click the Load Data button. To display data from these files, zoom in to a region you want to see, and click Load Data. Whatever data in the file that overlaps with the current region in view will appear in the display.

Tip: If your data file is not large, change Load Mode to Genome. If you do that, IGB will then read and display all the data in the file. Examples of data sets that work best when loaded in the Genome mode include: gene models for the entire human genome or significant regions identified in a ChIP-Seq experiment. 

For more about loading files, please see Loading data.

.bam files need a .bai file

IGB can display alignments data from .bam files. However, it requires a .bam index file (called a .bai) to be present in the same folder as the .bam file.

I opened my sequence file (".fasta" or ".bnib" or "twobit") but all I see is a gray bar and dashes.

To save memory, IGB doesn't load sequence data until you click the Load Sequence button. To view the bases, click the Load Sequence button and then zoom in.