idea Provide tool to easily remove the field GLOBALID from feature class. in ArcGIS Pro Ideas

Provide tool to easily remove the field GLOBALID from feature class.

NickBos1 — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 20:23:44 GMT

There are various approaches to remove the field GLOBALID from a feature class, but this should be something out of the box that takes care of this need. For those that are quite familiar of the hassle of the lack of current functionality for removal of this field please help by voting to promote this enhancement request.

The below snapshot depicts current esri context menu interface functionality to add Global IDs to a feature dataset's feature classes via a right mouse click on a feature dataset.

The below snapshot portrays what esri could do as one option to help ease the problem to remove the field GLOBALID.

Also request esri enhance their ArcToolbox --> Data Management Tools --> Fields --> Delete Field tool to allow deletion of the field/column of GLOBALID. In turn this would make the software more robust in model builder and python.

If there is an issue that esri doesn't allow the field to be dropped once created thinking it is still part of versioning, replication or related then esri should likewise enhance their product to unregister as versioned as a preliminary step.

We don't want workaround solutions anymore of VB code, ArcObjects when we don't have an ArcObjects specialist on staff, don't want users have to delete from inside MS Access let alone run a script from within MS Access to remove fields nor do we want to use the Feature Class to Feature Class Tool when we just want to work with the source data. We just want that straight forward solution that is already nearly at our fingertips per above request.

Thanks for your read and consideration.

Nick

Re: Provide tool to easily remove the field GLOBALID from feature class.

RonnieRichards — Sun, 08 Sep 2013 15:03:09 GMT

Agree with the author we do not want to create or find work-arounds for VBA work-a-arounds that are no longer supported.

We experienced this issue for over 40 datasets and it was rather frustrating referencing the Technical Article. http://support.esri.com/fr/knowledgebase/techarticles/detail/33663

Who wants to deal with 1 feature class at a time?

Had to create SQL procedures to automate this as it should be out of the box using the ArcGIS tools. For those that need to automate here was our procedure:

Backup GDB

Drop all Indexes on all owned schema tables for Global ID

Drop all constraints on all owned schema tables for Global ID

Drop Global ID on all owned schema tables

Remove Global ID from SDE column registry

Test your versioned environment

obviously this is a hack but the primary reason a tool is needed that is not 1 feature class at a time.

Re: Provide tool to easily remove the field GLOBALID from feature class.

tAndriusBogvila — Mon, 11 Nov 2019 09:40:22 GMT

We need geoprocessing tool to delete GlobalIds from feature class. We use arcpy and geoprocessing tools to create database migration scripts. Without a proper way to delete GlobalIds we cannot rollback our database changes after GlobalIds are added.

Disable Global ID with Arcpy

Nicolas_GREHANT_IGNFI — Tue, 06 Dec 2022 00:04:59 GMT

Hi all.

KISS. Keep It Simple Stupid: it's very easy to enable Global ID and Editor Tracking through Arcpy, as well as to disable Editor Tracking thanks to Arcpy. But NOTHING for Disable Global ID...!

The only way to get rid of it: transfer from a GDB with GID to the same without GID (yes I know, quick to be done thanks to Load Dta and a good XCross, but that means "Production Mapping" extension (which we fortunately have) for something basic...

Hard for me to tell all my French and international partners to use Data Reviewer if it is so hard just to get rid of Global ID to go back to their original GDB structure (meaning without GID and Editor Tracking fields that are compulsory for most Data Reviewer attribute rules...)

Best regards, keep on getting the best!

Re: Provide tool to easily remove the field GLOBALID from feature class.

GIS_Spellblade — Thu, 07 Sep 2023 22:20:29 GMT

So I was doing some work with an end-user and after troubleshooting something to deal with GlobalIDs, I said, no worries just use the search bar and type in: Remove GlobalIDs

Surprise. Surprise. This ArcGIS Idea from 2012 still valid and relevant 11 years later.

There needs to be an easier way to remove a GlobalID that does not require recreating a feature class.

Re: Provide tool to easily remove the field GLOBALID from feature class.

PaulLohr — Fri, 22 Sep 2023 20:16:12 GMT

Great tip, @RonnieRichards. It would be great if you could share the SQL that you used to delete the Global ID column in your RDBMS.

11 years and still no fix for this? I'm quite weary of the way ESRI treats us.

Re: Provide tool to easily remove the field GLOBALID from feature class.

RonnieRichards — Fri, 29 Sep 2023 18:10:25 GMT

@PaulLohr this was a long time ago but I do have my scripts. This idea does still have merit.

I will post my code blocks below which were quick and dirty with the intent to remove ALL global IDs. As-is they are non destructive and only generate the T-SQL statements to the console so they can be reviewed and executed in another session.

Not sure I would use this today with all of the functionality now available in the EGDB putting more dependencies on them such as archiving, attachment tables, versioned views, sync. This was before versioned views (_evws) were created by default and pretty sure they will not auto-update without an ArcGIS field event. These might require manual alterations if the global id fields did get dropped. Please use caution this could destroy a gdb with versioning, relationship classes, replicas, etc... They also might need some protections to not target an SDE or DBO owned schema objects.

Drop Indexes

DECLARE @VSQL NVARCHAR(2000) DECLARE @CURR CURSOR SET @CURR = CURSOR FAST_FORWARD FOR SELECT 'DROP INDEX ' + NAME + ' ON '+OBJECT_SCHEMA_NAME(OBJECT_ID)+'.'+OBJECT_NAME(OBJECT_ID)+';' FROM SYS.INDEXES WHERE TYPE > 0 AND OBJECT_SCHEMA_NAME(OBJECT_ID) = 'GIS' --The Data Owner AND NAME LIKE 'UUID%' ORDER BY OBJECT_SCHEMA_NAME(OBJECT_ID), OBJECT_NAME(OBJECT_ID) OPEN @CURR FETCH NEXT FROM @CURR INTO @VSQL WHILE (@@FETCH_STATUS = 0) BEGIN PRINT @VSQL FETCH NEXT FROM @CURR INTO @VSQL END CLOSE @CURR; DEALLOCATE @CURR;

Drop Constraints

DECLARE @VSQL NVARCHAR(2000) DECLARE @CURR CURSOR SET @CURR = CURSOR FAST_FORWARD FOR SELECT 'ALTER TABLE ' + SCHEMA_NAME(SCHEMA_ID) + '.' + OBJECT_NAME(PARENT_OBJECT_ID) + ' DROP CONSTRAINT ' + OBJECT_NAME(OBJECT_ID) FROM SYS.OBJECTS WHERE TYPE_DESC LIKE '%CONSTRAINT' AND OBJECT_NAME(OBJECT_ID) = 'GLOBALID' OPEN @CURR FETCH NEXT FROM @CURR INTO @VSQL WHILE (@@FETCH_STATUS = 0) BEGIN PRINT @VSQL FETCH NEXT FROM @CURR INTO @VSQL END CLOSE @CURR; DEALLOCATE @CURR;

Drop GlobalID

DECLARE @VSQL NVARCHAR(2000) DECLARE @CURR CURSOR SET @CURR = CURSOR FAST_FORWARD FOR SELECT 'ALTER TABLE ' + C.TABLE_SCHEMA + '.' + C.TABLE_NAME + ' DROP COLUMN ' + C.COLUMN_NAME FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS C LEFT OUTER JOIN SDE.SDE_LAYERS L ON L.TABLE_NAME = C.TABLE_NAME AND L.OWNER = C.TABLE_SCHEMA LEFT OUTER JOIN SDE.SDE_TABLE_REGISTRY R ON L.TABLE_NAME = R.TABLE_NAME LEFT OUTER JOIN SDE.SDE_COLUMN_REGISTRY CR ON L.TABLE_NAME = CR.TABLE_NAME AND L.OWNER = CR.OWNER AND CR.COLUMN_NAME = 'GLOBALID' LEFT OUTER JOIN INFORMATION_SCHEMA.VIEWS V ON C.TABLE_NAME = V.TABLE_NAME AND C.TABLE_SCHEMA = V.TABLE_SCHEMA WHERE C.COLUMN_NAME = 'GLOBALID' --AND (L.BASE_LAYER_ID = 0 OR L.BASE_LAYER_ID IS NULL) AND V.TABLE_NAME IS NULL ORDER BY L.TABLE_NAME OPEN @CURR FETCH NEXT FROM @CURR INTO @VSQL WHILE (@@FETCH_STATUS = 0) BEGIN PRINT @VSQL FETCH NEXT FROM @CURR INTO @VSQL END CLOSE @CURR; DEALLOCATE @CURR;

Drop GlobalID from the SDE Column Registry (be careful!!)

DECLARE @VSQL NVARCHAR(2000) DECLARE @CURR CURSOR SET @CURR = CURSOR FAST_FORWARD FOR SELECT 'DELETE FROM SDE.SDE_COLUMN_REGISTRY WHERE COLUMN_NAME = ''' + CR.COLUMN_NAME + ''' AND OWNER = ''GIS'' AND TABLE_NAME = ''' + '' + L.TABLE_NAME + '''' FROM SDE.SDE_LAYERS L INNER JOIN SDE.SDE_TABLE_REGISTRY R ON L.TABLE_NAME = R.TABLE_NAME LEFT OUTER JOIN INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS C ON L.TABLE_NAME = C.TABLE_NAME AND C.COLUMN_NAME = 'GLOBALID' AND L.OWNER = C.TABLE_SCHEMA LEFT OUTER JOIN SDE.SDE_COLUMN_REGISTRY CR ON L.TABLE_NAME = CR.TABLE_NAME AND L.OWNER = CR.OWNER AND CR.COLUMN_NAME = 'GLOBALID' WHERE CR.COLUMN_NAME = 'GLOBALID' ORDER BY L.TABLE_NAME OPEN @CURR FETCH NEXT FROM @CURR INTO @VSQL WHILE (@@FETCH_STATUS = 0) BEGIN PRINT @VSQL FETCH NEXT FROM @CURR INTO @VSQL END CLOSE @CURR; DEALLOCATE @CURR;

Hope this helps and good luck!

Ronnie

Re: Provide tool to easily remove the field GLOBALID from feature class.

SSWoodward — Fri, 06 Oct 2023 16:58:54 GMT

Thank you everyone for your comments.

@RonnieRichards is correct that ArcGIS Pro uses Global IDs for a myriad of purposes, and that removing them after they have been applied could cause unexpected and undesirable results depending on your data. Since Global Ids are a form of row identification, in many cases removing them would be similar to removing the object ID from your data.

If possible, could some of the commenters share a bit more about what workflows they are performing where Global IDs must be removed after applying them?

Re: Provide tool to easily remove the field GLOBALID from feature class. - Status changed to: Needs Clarification

SSWoodward — Fri, 06 Oct 2023 16:58:05 GMT

Re: Provide tool to easily remove the field GLOBALID from feature class.

AllanBenvin_yyc — Fri, 08 Dec 2023 18:38:14 GMT

What would be useful is a tool to re-create the index on the globalid correctly for the state of the data. I find the preserveGlobalIDs setting to be key to certain operations like append but depending on the version of ArcGIS that you used when you created the GlobalID column the indexes may not qualify for this setting to work and may cause more problems.

The article here describes the indexes for GlobalID on base, A, D, and archive tables depending if your data is versioned, archived etc. FAQ: How Have Unique Indexes on Geodatabase-Managed Global IDs Changed? (esri.com)

We have thousands of datasets created over the years and the indexes are in all sorts of different states. Fixing these up based on the rules in the link is pretty much a nightmare.

Re: Provide tool to easily remove the field GLOBALID from feature class.

SSWoodward — Mon, 11 Dec 2023 17:07:22 GMT

Thanks for the idea @AllanBenvin_yyc. I encourage you to open an Idea specific to your request so that it can receive kudos and build support within the community.

Re: Provide tool to easily remove the field GLOBALID from feature class.

ChristalHigdon_USFS — Tue, 04 Jun 2024 23:53:02 GMT

I was searching on how to remove globalids and would add the use case here @SSWoodward -

We are migrating into Parcel Fabric and in order to publish our data as a service, it needs to have GlobalID. A database developer had added a field called globalid as text and then the python script went to prepare the data for publishing and used AddGlobalIDs tool. This added a globalid column as globalid_1. I want to delete the text globalid field AND the actual globalid_1 field so it can be properly named. I literally just added it and need to 'undo' and 'redo' the globlalid without wiping out all of the data or going through a bunch of steps to export and reimport as there are relationships built to these tables, so can't just delete and recreate. And there are many of them, so literally if there are no replicas or other things using globalid, why can't I delete it more easily?

Re: Provide tool to easily remove the field GLOBALID from feature class.

SSWoodward — Wed, 05 Jun 2024 00:12:08 GMT

Thanks for that additional use case @ChristalHigdon_USFS

The team is currently reviewing this idea and the use cases shared by users. Thank you for sharing your use case.

We hope that users continue to share their use cases so we can better understand how this enhancement would improve their workflows.

Re: Provide tool to easily remove the field GLOBALID from feature class. - Status changed to: Open

SSWoodward — Wed, 05 Jun 2024 00:00:38 GMT

Re: Provide tool to easily remove the field GLOBALID from feature class.

AlisonWieckowicz — Mon, 06 Jan 2025 15:33:31 GMT

We too have had situations where developers have evaluated adding global ID to several feature classes that are part of a complex geodatabase schema with a parent feature dataset (controller class), coded value domains, attribute rules etc. After evaluation it was determined that we would like to remove global ID from the tables. The guidance to use "feature class to feature class" to basically recreate the feature classes without the Global ID is not at all practical in these situations.

Consider creating an option to remove them that includes plenty if disclaimers and requires GDB administrator account or something.

Re: Provide tool to easily remove the field GLOBALID from feature class.

HanRit — Fri, 11 Apr 2025 20:24:15 GMT

Also made the mistake of adding a Global ID field when meant to do GUID. Now it looks like I cant get rid of easily and will lead to confusion when I try to pass this on to the next person as I will not always be the owner of this. Yes, documentation and communication help but also agree with this needing to be an option for these kinds of instances.

Re: Provide tool to easily remove the field GLOBALID from feature class.

PaulHoefflerGISS — Fri, 27 Jun 2025 15:25:21 GMT

I've run into this issue, as well. Very difficult to remove GlobalID fields.

In my case, I exported the geodatabase to an XML workspace document, used an editor to remove references to GlobalID-related indexes and GlobalID fields, switched some GlobalID references from true to false, saved it, imported it, and the GlobalIDs were all gone/disabled.

You need a decent editor to be able to do this, and it may still lock up. My schema is over 8 million characters in one line of text, as Pro exports it. You also have to be in a situation where you're looking to translate it to a new geodatabase for this approach to work.

This is far too difficult to remove, as observed with enterprise geodatabases (SDE) and file geodatabases, and likely also with mobile geodatabases.

It would be great if this could be addressed within 15 years of the original post, but I don't want to be overly optimistic here. It's been over a year since esri staff commented, perhaps they're working on it. Any BUG or ENH numbers to share?

Thanks in advance...

Re: Provide tool to easily remove the field GLOBALID from feature class.

LindseyGreidanus — Mon, 22 Sep 2025 14:04:30 GMT

Just ran into this issue experimenting with enabling a layer for offline use.

The actual conversion to offline use failed, but it still created a new field called globalID that caused issues with an append script, because now the fields didn't match. Trying to overwrite the layer failed, and I ended up adjusting the appending script to ignore the extra field, because it doesn't seem possible to delete the unused global id field.

Re: Provide tool to easily remove the field GLOBALID from feature class.

Ed_ — Mon, 05 Jan 2026 19:03:25 GMT

Hello happy new year folks at ESRI, well 2026 is here, it would be really appreciated if this functionality gets finally implemented in ArcGIS Pro.

Re: Provide tool to easily remove the field GLOBALID from feature class.

PaulHoefflerGISS — Mon, 05 Jan 2026 19:47:38 GMT

@SSWoodward , any updates? Related BUG or ENHs you can provide?

Based on your 2024 comments, it appeared that the product team could be considering this.

I haven't checked the latest features in ArcGIS Pro 3.6.1, maybe it's already there. 😀