# Downloading IPUMS Data

**URL:** <https://forum.ipums.org/t/downloading-ipums-data/5526>\
**Category:** General\
**Created:** [November 14, 2023, 4:54am UTC](https://forum.ipums.org/t/downloading-ipums-data/5526 "2023-11-14T04:54:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Olasubomi\_Ayeni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Olasubomi\_Ayeni](https://forum.ipums.org/u/Olasubomi_Ayeni)\
**Post date:** [November 14, 2023, 4:54am UTC](https://forum.ipums.org/t/downloading-ipums-data/5526/1 "2023-11-14T04:54:00Z")

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i am having issues downloading IPUMS data. Please advise. I tried on Stata and when i tried accessing, the data doesn’t load

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**Author:** ![Ivan\_Strahof](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.ipums.org/ivan_strahof/32/626_2.png) [@Ivan\_Strahof](https://forum.ipums.org/u/Ivan_Strahof)\
**Post date:** [November 14, 2023, 7:49pm UTC](https://forum.ipums.org/t/downloading-ipums-data/5526/2 "2023-11-14T19:49:28Z")

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I recommend reviewing these [instructions for opening extracts](https://usa.ipums.org/usa/extract_instructions.shtml) as well as [this FAQ question](https://usa.ipums.org/usa-action/faq#ques17). Please follow up if you are still having difficulties after following these instructions.

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**Author:** ![Isabel\_Pastoor](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.ipums.org/isabel_pastoor/32/788_2.png) [@Isabel\_Pastoor](https://forum.ipums.org/u/Isabel_Pastoor)\
**Post date:** [November 20, 2023, 7:36pm UTC](https://forum.ipums.org/t/downloading-ipums-data/5526/4 "2023-11-20T19:36:55Z")

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Can you please provide some more information about the difficulty you are encountering, and a screenshot if possible? If you can be more detailed in what the issue is I will better be able to assist you.

You will need to ensure you have requested the appropriate file type for your software (.dta or .dat for Stata and .csv for Excel). By default, our data are compressed. You will need to decompress or unzip them before using them. I recommend [7zip](http://7zip.org/) as a free decompression software for Windows and [The Unarchiver](https://theunarchiver.com/) for Macs.

This [blog post](https://blog.popdata.org/open-ipums-data-in-stats-pkg/) explains how to open your data in a stats package and how to change the file type.