Remove Thumbnail from ArcPro Bookmarks

Question

I have ArcPro 3.4, and for part of my work I need to make bookmarks of various features, sometimes several hundred per map project. ArcPro bookmarks aren't meant to do this, I've discovered - the thumbnails and whatever bloat data (byond the needed scale/extent) is added make the APRX size balloon up, which in turn makes it laggy and prone to crashing. I want the simple list of bookmarks that ArcMap made - no thumbnails, just an easy list to scroll through. I realize that I can get what appears to be a list via the Bookmark Manager, but the thumbnails are still there in the Bookmark dropdown in the Map ribbon, too small to be useable (hence getting rid of the little snips entirely).

Is there an alternative method that I could try, that doesn't make my map project unwieldy and huge, or am I stuck with it?

AndreaEinck · Answer

Interesting.... Thank you for the info, and the idea 🙂

Hornbydd · Answer

Ideally ESRI should provide an option to not create thumbnails so the bloating scenario you describe does not occur. I think one should also be able to remove existing ones as in your situation. Currently the only thing you can do is either remove the bookmark entirely or "update it", one cannot simply ask to not have an image. I suggest you start an Idea, see if it gets any traction.

There is a fudge that you can use to get rid of the thumbnails. I strongly suggest you attempt this from a backed up copy!

The aprx file is actually a zip file. So if you open the aprx file in say winRAR or 7Zip you will see a folder called Thumbnails which have a bunch of .dat files, these are the images.

* Unzip the aprx into an empty folder called XYZ.
* Navigate into the Thumbnails sub-folder.
* For each file go into it using a text editor and delete everything, then save the file overwriting it, creating a 0KB file size.
* Zip up the contents of XYZ and call the zip file the same name as your project file, make sure the file extension is aprx. Windows will ask if you are sure you want to change the file extension, say yes.
* Move the new aprx file into the original project folder overwriting the original bloated aprx file.

For step 3 you could use macros in notepad++ to automate the clearing of the file or come up with your own script to clear the files ensuring they retain the name. That's for you to choose.

The end result is a smaller aprx and ArcPro creating default icons for the bookmarks: