indexed bam file

[Dolphin22]

What is exactly an indexed bam file?
I already have a bam file AND a bai file. Is this already an indexed bam file? I could successfully load it into IGV but did not manage to do with Tablet

[vivek_]

The .bai file is the index to your bam file.

[Dolphin22]

Yes I know but I can only load the bam file into tablet and not the index file

[vivek_]

As far as I know the index file is used to programmatically read the locations in your bam more efficiently, its not a separate entity.

[gaffa]

Generally you just need to keep the .bai file in the same directory as the bam file and any program that needs it will read it automatically.