# Exporting processed .qza reads into separate .fasta files for each sample
**URL:** https://forum.qiime2.org/t/exporting-processed-qza-reads-into-separate-fasta-files-for-each-sample/19327
**Category:** User Support
**Tags:** fasta, export, fungi
**Created:** [April 21, 2021, 8:10pm UTC](https://forum.qiime2.org/t/exporting-processed-qza-reads-into-separate-fasta-files-for-each-sample/19327 "2021-04-21T20:10:11Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@sjcochran](https://forum.qiime2.org/u/sjcochran)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2021, 8:10pm UTC](https://forum.qiime2.org/t/exporting-processed-qza-reads-into-separate-fasta-files-for-each-sample/19327/1 "2021-04-21T20:10:11Z")
Hello! I am looking for help with processing my data from Fungal ITS1 amplicon sequencing.
I have demultiplexed, paired-end reads in `.fastq` format. I imported my data into QIIME2 (installed on a VirtualBox), cut the primers using `cutadapt`, joined the forward and reverse reads using `vsearch join-pairs`, and quality filtered them using` quality-filter q-score`. Now I would like to export my reads to run them through a classifier outside of QIIME2. My research group has previously used QIIME1 and exported our processed reads into separate `.fasta` formatted files for each sample. The separate files are important for our downstream processing through BLAST and FHiTINGS (as described: [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23765392/](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23765392/)).
However, QIIME2 requires artifacts for read processing. Is there a way to export multiple `.fasta` formatted files (each containing the reads from only one sample) from a `.qza`?
Thanks!
-Sam
---
### Author:  [@timanix](https://forum.qiime2.org/u/timanix)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2021, 10:02pm UTC](https://forum.qiime2.org/t/exporting-processed-qza-reads-into-separate-fasta-files-for-each-sample/19327/2 "2021-04-21T22:02:23Z")
Hi!
I think first you can use export command to extract fastq.gz files by samples:
```
mkdir extracted-reads
qiime tools extract \
--input-path reads.qza \
--output-path extracted-reads/
```
After you can use any suitable tool by your choice outside of Qiime2 to convert fastq.gz files to fasta
---
### Author:  [@sjcochran](https://forum.qiime2.org/u/sjcochran)
#### Post date: [April 24, 2021, 4:57pm UTC](https://forum.qiime2.org/t/exporting-processed-qza-reads-into-separate-fasta-files-for-each-sample/19327/3 "2021-04-24T16:57:11Z")
Thank you this seems to work great!
---
### Author:  [@system](https://forum.qiime2.org/u/system)
#### Post date: [May 25, 2021, 10:58pm UTC](https://forum.qiime2.org/t/exporting-processed-qza-reads-into-separate-fasta-files-for-each-sample/19327/4 "2021-05-25T22:58:04Z")
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