# Stata and Ipums **URL:** \ **Category:** General\ **Created:** [February 9, 2022, 4:41pm UTC](https://forum.ipums.org/t/stata-and-ipums/4503 "2022-02-09T16:41:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Hilario\_Molina\_II](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e47774/32.png) [@Hilario\_Molina\_II](https://forum.ipums.org/u/Hilario_Molina_II)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2022, 4:41pm UTC](https://forum.ipums.org/t/stata-and-ipums/4503/1 "2022-02-09T16:41:49Z")
I visited the videos online (and youtube), download everything correctly to my do.file BUT I keep getting the following “file usa\_00004.dat not found”. Yes, the data file is saved in the same folder as the do file and the working directory is set to the same path. Can someone please help me? ---
**Author:** ![KariWilliams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/82dd89/32.png) [@KariWilliams](https://forum.ipums.org/u/KariWilliams)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2022, 2:48pm UTC](https://forum.ipums.org/t/stata-and-ipums/4503/2 "2022-02-10T14:48:22Z")
By default, our data are compressed (\*.dat.gz). 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. I suspect the issue is that your syntax file is looking for a .dat file and finding a .dat.gz file instead. Please email ipums@umn.edu if you are still encountering issues reading your data into Stata after decompressing the file. ---
**Author:** ![Hilario\_Molina\_II](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e47774/32.png) [@Hilario\_Molina\_II](https://forum.ipums.org/u/Hilario_Molina_II)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2022, 4:29pm UTC](https://forum.ipums.org/t/stata-and-ipums/4503/3 "2022-02-10T16:29:55Z")
YES, I know; already tried unzipping; I just went ahead and download as a stata file. NEVER AGAIN!