I am sorry if this question was already asked here, but I couldn't find the exact answer to it here or elsewhere yet. And I am new to the Filemaker administration so please forgive me the use of the wrong terminology.

I am starting to work with a database that contains a bunch of sensitive data, so I am looking for a way to copy the database structure including tables, relationships and layout without the data content (records) in order to work on that "empty" database to include new tables, change the layout, implement new functions and scripts before applying changes to the original database.

Is there a way to do that?

Many thanks in advance!

File > Save a copy as... Type: clone (no records)

Thank you, that's exactly what I was looking for!

One issue with Save as Clone is that any tables that serve the purpose of providing choices in value lists is lost.  If you run into that, you can always import those records from production.

Your next question, if I may, is how do you now update production? That is, ship the updated structure and have it import production data? Claris provides a tool for updates that is available to subscribers on https://community.claris.com/en/s/ called the FM Data Migration Tool. There are some "wrappers" both free and commercial that extend the features of that tool.