idea Add/Remove Units to ALL projects (global setting) in ArcGIS Pro Ideas

Add/Remove Units to ALL projects (global setting)

AlfredBaldenweck — Mon, 09 Feb 2026 23:23:57 GMT

Pro 3.5

I have a workflow for my users that sets their user settings to match our office's best practices (e.g. default toolbox or lack thereof, etc.)

I'd like to be able to set the units they have available to them across all projects.

For example, we do not want them using the US Survey Foot and its derived units (US Survey Acres, etc.)

Similarly, in this other Idea posted the other day, it would probably make sense for this user to always have Nautical Miles available.

Please enact a global option for units (maybe it can get overridden by project-level units?)

Re: Add/Remove Units to ALL projects (global setting)

AyanPalit — Thu, 15 Jan 2026 01:51:12 GMT

@AlfredBaldenweck Have you tried setting the default units in Pro > Project > Options > Units

I believe the current behavior is to preserve the default settings until you change them. Please clarify if this is not what you are looking for.

Are you looking for a global application settings ?

Re: Add/Remove Units to ALL projects (global setting)

AlfredBaldenweck — Thu, 15 Jan 2026 14:04:25 GMT

Yes, that is what prompted this post. Those settings as currently offered are applied per project, meaning that that entire tab of the options menu is inaccessible if you open without a project and are not applied globally.

For example, to test this this morning, I created a new project and added Chains to the distance units. I saved the project and created a second new project. Chains were not in the distance units for the second project.

If I have a business need that requires me to always use a specific unit, such as Chains or Nautical Miles, I should not have to open the settings to add the unit every time I make a new project. Similarly, if I want to make sure I'm not using the wrong version of a unit (US Survey Foot vs International Foot), I want to programmatically remove the wrong version of the unit from all my projects.

I do understand the need for a project-level unit collection and don't think it should go away. But that does not mean that we shouldn't be able to have a global setting. My vote is for the setting to live in user.config instead of in Pro.settingsConfig/the registry.

Re: Add/Remove Units to ALL projects (global setting)

jseider — Thu, 14 May 2026 19:23:39 GMT

Agreed! I do not work in the United States and never use imperial units. I do not like that I have to manually change everything to metric each time I open a project.

I am also annoyed when I insert a scale bar, for example, on a layout and it defaults to units of Miles. I want it to always be in metric. Even if I set the project settings to be in metric, the scale bar defaults to Miles.