MacFamilyTree 11.3.2 for macOS

You’ve got names scribbled on napkins and a cousin who swears your great-grandfather was a sea captain. Pulling all that into one clear picture is where a Mac genealogy app earns its keep. MacFamilyTree 11.3.2 gives you a single place to build the tree, dig through records, and share what you find—without losing track of who’s who.

Build the tree your way

The app gives you a standard family view, but the virtual 3D tree is the crowd-pleaser. You can walk through branches visually and hide certain people or records before you export anything.

Pull in records and clues

You can search genealogy portals right from inside the app, then import or export everything through GEDCOM. The report engine spits out family, person, relationship, narrative, map, source, and credibility reports when you need something tangible.

Keep it private or share it

CloudTree Sync & Share keeps your data current across devices, storing everything locally or encrypted in iCloud. If you publish a family website through the built-in tool, password protection keeps the whole thing from becoming public property. The companion app, MobileFamilyTree, handles the iPhone and iPad side.

A real workflow: from a faded photo to a finished branch

Let’s say you found an old wedding photo with a date on the back but no names. Here’s how you’d pull that thread in MacFamilyTree 11.3.2.

Start a new person entry with whatever you know—maybe just a surname from the photographer’s stamp and the year. Switch to the Virtual Globe chart and place a pin on the town. Now you’ve got a location anchor. Next, use the built-in FamilySearch lookup right from that person’s sidebar. You’re not switching tabs; the results drop in alongside your tree. When a census record matches the town and surname, add the household members as new entries. MacFamilyTree links them automatically—no manual connector dragging. Once you’ve built a few generations around that photo, run a relationship report to check for gaps. The report shows exactly where you’re missing a parent or a marriage date. Fill those in, then export the branch as a fan chart to share with your cousin for a fact-check.

Snags people hit—and the fixes

Most trouble comes from syncing, merging, or forgetting where data lives. Here are the three I see over and over.

Duplicate people after a GEDCOM import. When you pull in a file from another researcher, you’ll often get three versions of the same aunt. Use the merge tool under the person menu—it walks you through picking which facts to keep. Don’t just delete duplicates, or you’ll orphan their attached sources.

CloudTree sync won’t push changes. This usually means the database file is stored outside iCloud. Check that your tree file lives in the Mobile Documents folder. On Apple Silicon Macs running macOS 12 Monterey or later, the app defaults to iCloud, but a manual move can break the link. Re-select the database location in the sync preferences and give it a minute.

Exported charts look fuzzy. The resolution slider in the export panel defaults low to keep file sizes small. Crank it up before exporting, and if you’re sending a PDF, choose “single page” formatting so the app doesn’t scrunch a wide fan chart onto an A4 sheet.

iCloud and Time Machine keep your tree backed up

MacFamilyTree plays nicely with macOS right out of the box. The database can live in iCloud Drive, so Time Machine grabs your family file alongside everything else on your Mac. When you export a report as a PDF, you can sign it right in Preview before emailing it—handy for sharing a credibility report with a historical society.

For heavy research days, I keep the app open next to Safari in Split View. Drag a census image from a webpage straight into a person’s media gallery. It lands as a source attachment without a detour through Finder. If you run MobileFamilyTree on an iPad, edits appear in the Mac app within seconds via CloudTree Sync—no cable, no AirDrop.

And the GEDCOM backbone means you’re never locked in. Export a full file before trying a new tree layout, or pull your whole database into a different genealogy tool for a one-off map project. The export includes your media, sources, and notes, so you’re not rebuilding anything.

Version 11.3.2 doesn't add flashy new tools—it just tightens the bolts. Stability improvements make the experience smoother when you're clicking through large trees or syncing across devices.

• macOS 12 Monterey or later
• Runs on Intel and Apple Silicon Macs
• iCloud account needed for syncing between devices