Duplicate Geodatabase layers "H"

Question

I was exporting several layers within a Geodatabase connection from one FeatureDataset to another when I noticed several duplicates layers were being created within the geodatabase, but outside of any Feature Dataset. The layers seem to be identical aside from the duplicates including an "_H" at the end of each of their names. When I exported some layers yesterday I did not have this issue. I'm wondering what would cause this problem and whether I could safely delete the duplicates with the "_H" title.

Thanks,

ZJK

DanaNolan · Accepted Answer

Those are historical archive files. They are a copy of the data with some extra archival fields. Some of the features must have archiving set to on. I believe if you turn off versioning and archiving in the correct order before deleting files, they won't appear. But that is not trivial nor necessary. I usually keep for a few weeks, as data backups, then delete. If your organization is not using the archiving feature, it could be turned off and you won't see these H files again.