FAQs
Questions and answers for common NCBI Datasets questions
- How do I download SRA data?
- Where is the data I requested?
- I still can't find my data, can you help?
- What file formats can be downloaded using NCBI Datasets?
- What is a data package?
- What is a dehydrated data package and what is rehydration?
- What input date formats are supported by the command-line tools?
- Why do gene counts differ when comparing taxonomy and species pages to the gene table?
- What are atypical genomes?
- How does NCBI decide which genomes to annotate?
- How do I download plasmid sequences?
- What is the difference between a GenBank (GCA) and RefSeq (GCF) genome assembly?
- What is changing with the NCBI Datasets API rate limits in January 2025, and how will it affect programmatic access, including the command-line tool?
- Can I make more than 5 requests per second?
- If I already have an NCBI API key, do I need to request a new one to work with NCBI Datasets?
- How do API keys benefit both users and NCBI?
- Related information