idea Remove features that don't match when using the Append tools Update features option in ArcGIS Pro Ideas

Remove features that don't match when using the Append tools Update features option

LindsayRaabe_FPCWA — Wed, 06 May 2026 01:37:40 GMT

The Append tool has the Update Features option, allowing the user to define fields to match the input data to the target data, and where features in both datasets match, those features are updated instead of appended (avoiding duplication).

IDEA: Add a toggle box option as part of the Update Features function that removes and features from the Target dataset that don't have a matching feature in the Input dataset.

USE CASE: This will be handy where a dataset should be a complete copy of the input dataset, but currently requires 2 different processes to achieve this. Either Append (to add new features and update existing matching features) plus a Join > Filter > Delete Rows process to find and remove any old features that are no longer relevant. The other way of achieving this would be to delete all existing features and appending the complete new input dataset. I want to avoid this though as we're talking thousands of records and that is time consuming when dealing with feature services in ArcGIS Online.

Re: Remove features that don't match when using the Append tools Update features option

tikola — Wed, 06 May 2026 06:33:05 GMT

We will do this same process now first running Add Fields and then Append. So Add Fields adds everything that is missing from new and then append runs without hiccups. I run Append always in that mode where it shows what fields are not matching and user can define that as he wants.

But I agree - skip/delete everything that does not match option in Append might make sense in some cases.

Re: Remove features that don't match when using the Append tools Update features option

LindsayRaabe_FPCWA — Tue, 12 May 2026 01:09:12 GMT

Just to clarify, I don't mean skip features in the input layer that don't match existing features in the Target layer based on Matching fields. When I say "remove", I mean more like "delete" features that are already in the Target layer that don't exist in the Input layer. You should be left with only updated features in both datasets and newly added features.