Reference guide

Command-line options

General options

-h, --help: Show help
--version: Show version number and exit
--debug: Print debug log. Use twice to also print the dynamic programming matrices computed when aligning an adapter against a read. This is highly verbose, it is recommended to use this only for a single read.
-j CORES, --cores CORES (default: 1): Run on the given number of CPU cores. Use 0 to auto-detect the number of available cores.

Adapter-finding options

-a ADAPTER, --adapter ADAPTER

Specification of a 3’ adapter or a linked adapter.

-g ADAPTER, --front ADAPTER

Specification of a 5’ adapter or a linked adapter.

-b ADAPTER, --anywhere ADAPTER

Specification of an adapter that can be 5’ or 3’ (“anywhere”).

-e E, --error-rate E, --errors E (default: 0.1)

This sets the error tolerance used when searching for adapters.

If E is an integer >= 1, then E errors in a full-length adapter match are allowed. For each specified adapter, this is converted to a maximum allowed error rate. This allows proportionally fewer errors for shorter (partial) adapter matches.

If E is a floating-point value with 0 <= E < 1, this sets the maximum allowed error rate directly.

--no-indels (default: allow indels)

Do not allow insertions and deletions when matching adapters against reads.

-n COUNT, --times COUNT (default: 1)

Repeat the adapter finding and removal step up to COUNT times. The default is to search for only one adapter in each read.

-O MINLENGTH, --overlap MINLENGTH (default: 3)

Set the minimum overlap to MINLENGTH.

--match-read-wildcards

Interpret IUPAC wildcards in reads (such as N).

-N, --no-match-adapter-wildcards

Do not interpret IUPAC wildcards in adapters.

--action {trim,retain,mask,lowercase,none} (default: trim)

Specify what to do if an adapter match was found.

trim: Trim the adapter itself and up- or downstream sequence (depending on adapter type).

retain: Trim the up- or downstream sequence (depending on adapter type), but retain the adapter sequence itself.

mask: Replace the adapter sequence and up- or downstream sequence with ‘N’ characters

lowercase: Convert the adapter and up- or downstream sequence to lowercase.

none: Do not change the read. Found matches are still tracked and can be used for renaming the read or demultiplexing.

--rc, --revcomp

Check both the read and its reverse complement for adapter matches. If the reverse-complemented version yields a better match, output that one.

For paired-end reads, the reverse complement is obtained by swapping R1 and R2.

If the reverse-complemented version was chosen, the string `` rc`` is added to the read name.

Additional read modifications

Filtering of processed reads

Filters are applied after above read modifications. Paired-end reads are always discarded pairwise (see also --pair-filter). The default is to not apply any filters.

-m LEN[:LEN2], --minimum-length LEN[:LEN2]: Discard reads shorter than LEN. If LEN2 is given for paired-end data, it is applied to R2.
-M LEN[:LEN2], --maximum-length LEN[:LEN2]: Discard reads longer than LEN. If LEN2 is given for paired-end data, it is applied to R2.
--max-n COUNT: Discard reads with more than COUNT ‘N’ bases. If COUNT is a number between 0 and 1, it is interpreted as a fraction of the read length. See Dealing with N bases.
--max-expected-errors E, --max-ee E: Discard reads whose expected number of errors exceeds the value E.
--discard-trimmed, --discard: Discard reads in which an adapter match was found. Use also -O to avoid discarding too many randomly matching reads.
--discard-untrimmed, --trimmed-only: Discard reads in which no adapter match was found.
--discard-casava: Discard reads that did not pass CASAVA filtering (that is, the record header has :Y:).

Output

-o FILE, --output FILE

Write processed output to FILE (FASTA or FASTQ). Compressed file formats are supported. Including the special placeholder string {name} in the file name activates Demultiplexing. Including {name1} and {name2} activates combinatorial demultiplexing.

For paired-end data, this option is typically combined with -p.

If this option is omitted, processed reads are written to standard output.

--quiet

Print only error messages.

--report {full,minimal} (default: full)

Which type of report to print: ‘full’ or ‘minimal’.

--json FILE

Write a report in JSON format to FILE.

--fasta

Force writing FASTA to standard output. This option is usually not needed as FASTA output can be selected by using an appropriate output file name (.fasta, .fasta.gz etc.) with the -o option. However, when processing FASTQ files and when not using -o, FASTQ format is written to standard output by default. Use this option to force FASTA even in such a case.

-Z

Use compression level 1 for gzipped output files. This is a shorthand for --compression-level=1.

See: speed-up tricks

--info-file FILE

Write information about each read and its adapter matches to FILE. See: Info file format.

-r FILE, --rest-file FILE

When the adapter matches in the middle of a read, write the “rest” to FILE. For 3’ adapters, the “rest” is the part of the read after the adapter match. For 5’ adapters, the “rest” is the part of the read before the adapter match.

--wildcard-file FILE

When the adapter has N wildcard bases, write adapter bases matching wildcard positions to FILE. This is unreliable unless you also use --noindels. Does not work with linked adapters.

--too-short-output FILE

Write reads that are too short (according to the length specified by -m) to FILE. Default: discard too short reads

--too-long-output FILE

Write reads that are too long (according to length specified by -M) to FILE. Default: discard too long reads

--untrimmed-output FILE

Write reads that do not contain any adapter to FILE. Default: output to the same file as trimmed reads.

Paired-end options

JSON report format

The JSON reported is generated if --json=filename.cutadapt.json is used. The file name extension must be .cutadapt.json for the file to be recognized by log-parsing tools such as MultiQC. (However, at the time of writing, MultiQC does not support Cutadapt’s JSON report format.)

See how to extract information from the JSON report with jq.

Example

This example was reformatted to use less vertical space:

{
  "tag": "Cutadapt report",
  "schema_version": [0, 3],
  "cutadapt_version": "4.5",
  "python_version": "3.8.10",
  "command_line_arguments": [
    "--json=out.cutadapt.json", "--poly-a", "-m", "20", "-a", "AACCGGTTACGTTGCA",
    "-q", "20", "--discard-trimmed", "-o", "out.fastq.gz", "reads.fastq"],
  "cores": 1,
  "input": {
    "path1": "reads.fastq",
    "path2": null,
    "paired": false,
    "interleaved": null
  },
  "read_counts": {
    "input": 100000,
    "filtered": {
      "too_short": 251,
      "too_long": null,
      "too_many_n": null,
      "too_many_expected_errors": null,
      "casava_filtered": null,
      "discard_trimmed": 2061,
      "discard_untrimmed": null
    },
    "output": 97688,
    "reverse_complemented": null,
    "read1_with_adapter": 2254,
    "read2_with_adapter": null
  },
  "basepair_counts": {
    "input": 10100000,
    "input_read1": 10100000,
    "input_read2": null,
    "quality_trimmed": 842048,
    "quality_trimmed_read1": 842048,
    "quality_trimmed_read2": null,
    "poly_a_trimmed": 1028,
    "poly_a_trimmed_read1": 1028,
    "poly_a_trimmed_read2": null,
    "output": 9037053,
    "output_read1": 9037053,
    "output_read2": null
  },
  "adapters_read1": [
    {
      "name": "1",
      "total_matches": 2254,
      "on_reverse_complement": null,
      "linked": false,
      "five_prime_end": null,
      "three_prime_end": {
        "type": "regular_three_prime",
        "sequence": "AACCGGTTACGTTGCA",
        "error_rate": 0.1,
        "indels": true,
        "error_lengths": [6],
        "matches": 2254,
        "adjacent_bases": {
          "A": 473,
          "C": 1240,
          "G": 328,
          "T": 207,
          "": 6
        },
        "dominant_adjacent_base": null,
        "trimmed_lengths": [
          {"len": 3, "expect": 1562.5, "counts": [1220]},
          {"len": 4, "expect": 390.6, "counts": [319]},
          {"len": 5, "expect": 97.7, "counts": [30]},
          {"len": 6, "expect": 24.4, "counts": [4]},
          {"len": 7, "expect": 24.4, "counts": [5]},
          {"len": 8, "expect": 24.4, "counts": [7]},
          {"len": 9, "expect": 24.4, "counts": [4]},
          {"len": 10, "expect": 24.4, "counts": [7]},
          {"len": 11, "expect": 24.4, "counts": [7]},
          {"len": 12, "expect": 24.4, "counts": [6]},
          {"len": 13, "expect": 24.4, "counts": [8, 2]},
          {"len": 14, "expect": 24.4, "counts": [1, 1]},
          {"len": 15, "expect": 24.4, "counts": [2, 0]},
          {"len": 16, "expect": 24.4, "counts": [3, 1]},
        ]
      }
    }
  ],
  "adapters_read2": null,
  "poly_a_trimmed_read1": [
    {"len": 23, "count": 10},
    {"len": 42, "count": 19}
  ],
  "poly_a_trimmed_read2": null
}

Schema

Some concepts used in the JSON file:

Keys are always included. If a key is not applicable, its value is set to null.
Single-end data appears as “paired-end data without read 2”. That is, values for read 1 are filled in and values for read 2 are set to null.

The file defines the following keys. For nested objects (dictionaries), a dot notation is used, as in “outer_key.inner_key”.

tagstring

Always "Cutadapt report". A marker so that this can be recognized as a file produced by Cutadapt.

schema_versionlist of two integers

Major and minor version of the schema. If additions are made to the schema, the minor version is increased. If backwards incompatible changes are made, the major version is increased.

Example: [0, 1]

cutadapt_versionstr

The version of Cutadapt that generated the report.

Example: "4.4"

python_versionstr

The Python version used to run Cutadapt.

Example: "3.10"

command_line_argumentslist of strings

The command-line arguments for this invocation. Only for information, do not parse this.

Example: ["-a", "ACGT", "-o", "out.fastq", "input.fastq"]`

coresint

Number of cores used

inputdictionary

Input files

input.path1str

Path to the first input file.

Example: "reads.1.fastq"

input.path2str | null

Path to the second input file if given, null otherwise.

input.pairedbool

True if input was paired-end reads, false if input was single-end reads. If this is true and input.path2 is null, input was interleaved.

read_countsdictionary

Read count statistics

read_counts.inputint

Number of reads (for single-end data) or read pairs (for paired-end data) in the input.

read_counts.filtereddictionary

Statistics about filtered reads. Keys of the dictionary correspond to a filter. If a filter was not used, its value is set to null.

read_counts.filtered.too_shortint | null

Number of reads or read pairs that were filtered because they were too short

read_counts.filtered.too_longint | null

Number of reads or read pairs that were filtered because they were too long

read_counts.filtered.too_many_nint | null

Number of reads or read pairs that were filtered because they had too many N bases

read_counts.filtered.too_many_expected_errorsint | null

Number of reads or read pairs that were filtered because they had too many expected errors

read_counts.filtered.casava_filteredint | null

Number of reads or read pairs that were filtered because the CASAVA filter was Y

read_counts.filtered.discard_trimmedint | null

Number of reads or read pairs that were filtered because at least one adapter match was found for them

read_counts.filtered.discard_untrimmedint | null

Number of reads or read pairs that were filtered because no adapter match was found for them

read_counts.outputint

Number of reads written to the final output. This plus the sum of all filtered reads/read will equal the number of input reads.

read_counts.reverse_complementedint | null

If --revcomp was used, the number of reads or read pairs that were output reverse-complemented, null otherwise.

read_counts.read1_with_adapterint | null

Number of R1 reads (or single-end reads) with at least one adapter match, null if no adapter trimming was done.

read_counts.read2_with_adapterint | null

Number of R2 reads with at least one adapter match, null if input is single end or no adapter trimming was done.

basepair_countsdictionary

Statistics about the number of basepairs.

basepair_counts.inputint

Total number of basepairs in the input. (The sum of the lengths of all input reads.)

basepair_counts.input_read1int

Number of basepairs in the input, read 1 only.

basepair_counts.input_read2int | null

If paired-end, number of basepairs in the input counting read 2 only, null otherwise.

basepair_counts.quality_trimmedint | null

Total number of basepairs removed due to quality trimming or null if no quality trimming was done.

basepair_counts.quality_trimmed_read1int | null

Number of basepairs removed from read 1 due to quality trimming or null if no quality trimming was done.

basepair_counts.quality_trimmed_read2int

Number of basepairs removed from read 2 due to quality trimming or null if no quality trimming was done or if input was single end.

basepair_counts.poly_a_trimmedint | null

Total number of basepairs removed due to poly-A trimming or null if no poly-A trimming was done.

basepair_counts.poly_a_trimmed_read1int | null

Number of basepairs removed from read 1 due to poly-A trimming or null if no poly-A trimming was done.

basepair_counts.poly_a_trimmed_read2int

Number of basepairs removed from read 2 due to poly-T trimming or null if no poly-T trimming was done or if input was single end.

basepair_counts.outputint

Total number of basepairs in the final output.

basepair_counts.output_read1int

Number of basepairs written to the read 1 final output.

basepair_counts.output_read2int | null

Number of basepairs written to the read 2 final output.

adapters_read1list of dictionaries

A list with statistics about all adapters that were matched against read 1. The list is empty if no adapter trimming was done. The schema for the items in this list is described below.

adapters_read2list of dictionaries | null

A list with statistics about all adapters that were matched against read 2. The list is empty if no adapter trimming was done against R2. The value is set to null if the input was single end reads. The schema for the items in this list is described below.

poly_a_trimmed_read1list of dictionaries | null

A histogram of the lengths of poly-A tails removed from read 1. Each item in the list is a dictionary with keys len and count. This value is null if no poly-A trimming was done.

poly_a_trimmed_read2list of dictionaries | null

A histogram of the lengths of poly-T “heads” removed from read 2, see above. This value is null if no poly-A/poly-T trimming was done or the input was single-end reads.

Adapter statistics

The statistics about each adapter (items in the adapters_read1 and adapters_read2 list) are dictionaries with the following keys.

namestr

The adapter name. If no adapter name was given, a name is automatically generated as “1”, “2”, “3” etc.

total_matchesint

Number of times this adapter was found on a read. If --times is used, multiple matches per read are possible.

on_reverse_complementint | null

If --revcomp was used, the number of times the adapter was found on the reverse-complemented read, null otherwise.

linkedbool

Whether this is a linked adapter. If true, then both five_prime_end and three_prime_end (below) are filled in and describe the 5’ and 3’ components, respectively, of the linked adapter.

five_prime_enddictionary | null

Statistics about matches of this adapter to the 5’ end, that is, causing a prefix of the read to be removed.

If the adapter is of type regular_five_prime, noninternal_five_prime or anchored_five_prime, all its matches are summarized here.

If the adapter is a linked adapter (linked is true), the matches of its 5’ component are summarized here.

If the adapter is of type “anywhere”, the matches that were determined to be 5’ matches are summarized here.

This is null for the other adapter types.

three_prime_enddictionary | null

Statistics about matches of this adapter to the 3’ end, that is, causing a suffix of the read to be removed.

If the adapter is of type regular_three_prime, noninternal_three_prime or anchored_three_prime, all its matches are summarized here.

If the adapter is a linked adapter (linked is true), the matches of its 3’ component are summarized here.

If the adapter is of type “anywhere”, the matches that were determined to be 3’ matches are summarized here.

This is null for the other adapter types.

three/five_prime_end.typestr

Type of the adapter. One of these strings:

"regular_five_prime"
"regular_three_prime"
"noninternal_five_prime"
"noninternal_three_prime"
"anchored_five_prime"
"anchored_three_prime"
"anywhere"

For linked adapters, this is the type of its 5’ or 3’ component.

three/five_prime_end.sequencestr

Sequence of this adapter. For linked adapters, this is the sequence of its 5’ or 3’ component.

Example: "AACCGGTT"

three/five_prime_end.error_ratefloat

Error rate for this adapter. For linked adapters, the error rate for the respective end.

three/five_prime_end.indelsbool

Whether indels are allowed when matching this adapter against the read.

three/five_prime_end.error_lengthslist of ints

If the adapter type allows partial matches, this lists the lengths up to which 0, 1, 2 etc. errors are allowed. Example: [9, 16] means: 0 errors allowed up to a match of length 9, 1 error up to a match of length 16. The last number in this list is the length of the adapter sequence.

For anchored adapter types, this is null.

three/five_prime_end.matchesint

The number of matches of this adapter against the 5’ or 3’ end.

three/five_prime_end.adjacent_basesdictionary | null

For 3’ adapter types, this shows which bases occurred adjacent to (upstream of) the 3’ adapter match. It is a dictionary mapping the strings “A”, “C”, “G”, “T” and “” (empty string) to the number of occurrences. The empty string covers those cases in which the adjacent base was not one of A, C, G or T or in which there was no adjacent base (3’ adapter found at the beginning of the read).

This is null for 5’ adapters (adjacent base statistics are currently not tracked for those).

three/five_prime_end.dominant_adjacent_basestr | null

This is set to the dominant adjacent base if adjacent_bases exist and were determined to be sufficiently skewed, corresponding to the warning: “The adapter is preceded by “x” extremely often.”

This is null otherwise.

three/five_prime_end.trimmed_lengthslist of dictionaries

The histogram of the lengths of removed sequences. Each item in the list is a dictionary that describes how often a sequence of a certain length was removed, broken down by the number of errors in the adapter match.

Example:

"trimmed_lengths": [
  {"len": 4, "expect": 390.6, "counts": [319]},
  {"len": 5, "expect": 97.7, "counts": [30]},
  {"len": 6, "expect": 24.4, "counts": [4]},
  {"len": 7, "expect": 24.4, "counts": [5]},
  {"len": 15, "expect": 24.4, "counts": [2, 1]},
]

three/five_prime_end.trimmed_lengths.expectfloat

How often a sequence of length len would be expected to be removed due to random chance.

three/five_prime_end.trimmed_lengths.countslist of int

Element at index i in this list gives how often a sequence of length len was removed due to an adapter match with i errors. Sum these values to get the total count.

Example (5 sequences had 0 errors in the adapter matches, 3 had 1 and 1 had 2):

[5, 3, 1]

Info file format

When the --info-file command-line parameter is given, detailed information about where adapters were found in each read are written to the given file. It is a tab-separated text file that contains at least one row per input read. Normally, there is exactly one row per input read, but in the following cases, multiple rows may be output:

The option --times is in use.

A linked adapter is used.

A row is written for all input reads, even those that are discarded from the final FASTA/FASTQ output due to filtering options.

Note

Paired-end reads are not supported. The info file currently does not contain any info about read 2 when Cutadapt is run in paired-end mode.

Which fields are output in each row depends on whether an adapter match was found in the read or not.

If an adapter match was found, these fields are output in a row:

Read name
Number of errors
0-based start coordinate of the adapter match
0-based end coordinate of the adapter match
Sequence of the read to the left of the adapter match (can be empty)
Sequence of the read that was matched to the adapter
Sequence of the read to the right of the adapter match (can be empty)
Name of the found adapter.
Quality values corresponding to sequence left of the adapter match (can be empty)
Quality values corresponding to sequence matched to the adapter (can be empty)
Quality values corresponding to sequence to the right of the adapter match (can be empty)
Flag indicating whether the read was reverse complemented: 1 if yes, 0 if not, and empty if --revcomp was not used.

The concatenation of the fields 5-7 yields the full read sequence. Column 8 identifies the found adapter. The section about named adapters <named-adapters> describes how to give a name to an adapter. Adapters without a name are numbered starting from 1. Fields 9-11 are empty if quality values are not available. Concatenating them yields the full sequence of quality values.

If the adapter match was found on the reverse complement of the read, fields 5 to 7 show the reverse-complemented sequence, and fields 9-11 contain the qualities in reversed order.

If no adapter was found, the format is as follows:

Read name
The value -1 (use this to distinguish between match and non-match)
The read sequence
Quality values

When parsing the file, be aware that additional columns may be added in the future. Also, some fields can be empty, resulting in consecutive tabs within a line.

If the --times option is used and greater than 1, each read can appear more than once in the info file. There will be one line for each found adapter, all with identical read names. Only for the first of those lines will the concatenation of columns 5-7 be identical to the original read sequence (and accordingly for columns 9-11). For subsequent lines, the shown sequence are the ones that were used in subsequent rounds of adapter trimming, that is, they get successively shorter.

Linked adapters appear with up to two rows for each read, one for each constituent adapter for which a match has been found. To be able to see which of the two adapters a row describes, the adapter name in column 8 is modified: If the row describes a match of the 5’ adapter, the string ;1 is added. If it describes a match of the 3’ adapter, the string ;2 is added. If there are two rows, the 5’ match always comes first.

New in version 1.9: Columns 9-11 were added.

New in version 2.8: Linked adapters in info files work.

New in version 3.4: Column 12 (revcomp flag) added

Properly paired reads

When reading paired-end reads, Cutadapt compares the read IDs of R1 and R2. It prints an error message and aborts if they do not match.

Comments in the FASTQ or FASTA header are ignored when doing the comparison. Also, if the read ID ends with 1 or 2 or 3, then that is also ignored.

For example, two FASTQ headers that would be considered to denote properly paired reads are:

@my_read/1 a comment

and:

@my_read/2 another comment

This is an example for improperly paired reads:

@my_read/1;1

and:

@my_read/2;1

Since the 1 and 2 are ignored only if they occur at the end of the read name, and since the ;1 is considered to be part of the read name, these reads will not be considered to be properly paired.

Read modification order

Read modifications are applied in the following order to each read. Steps not requested on the command-line are skipped.

Unconditional base removal with --cut
Quality trimming (-q)
Adapter trimming (-a, -b, -g and uppercase versions)
Poly-A/poly-T trimming (--poly-a)
Read shortening (--length)
N-end trimming (--trim-n)
Length tag modification (--length-tag)
Read name suffix removal (--strip-suffix)
Addition of prefix and suffix to read name (-x/--prefix and -y/--suffix)
Read renaming according to --rename
Replacing of negative quality values with zero (zero capping)