# Tools: Split database

Usually, you split your database when you need to completely remove some persons or families from the database, you need to make a copy of those persons or families to move data to another database, or you need to send them to other researchers.

Before you run this tool, you must select a person you want to copy in the person list on "Individuals" tab. Then you use one of four available methods in this tool: pick out all relations, pick out ancestors only, pick out descendants only, or family only. When all persons have been picked out, you can save them as a separate database file, or remove them all from the current database. You can combine these operations—that is, save the picked results to a database first, and then remove it from the current database with the "Delete" button.

There are two lists displayed when using this tool: the list on the left contains all the picked persons, and the list on the right contains persons that were not picked by the tool.

In addition to the four types of person selection, there is also a separate operation "Select list". It is designed to select all records of any list of the main program window and then export these records to an external file. So you can select and export or only notes, or only multimedia, or locations. And other types of records.