topic Re: Shapefile Phaseout in ArcGIS Pro Questions

Shapefile Phaseout

Ed_ — Tue, 29 Jul 2025 18:58:10 GMT

General question for discussion, will there ever be a time in future when the shapefile format will be phased out completely from ESRI? Managing more or less six files with a .shp file is not convenient to say the least.

Re: Shapefile Phaseout

DanPatterson — Tue, 29 Jul 2025 19:06:42 GMT

No. arcinfo coverages still lurk and can be converted. (zip shapefiles if you find their structure clumbsy)

convert to other formats is the wise idea

think vinyl, 8-track, cassette, cd, dvd, cloud (and vinyl is still around and arguably the best 😉)

Re: Shapefile Phaseout

Ed_ — Tue, 29 Jul 2025 19:10:15 GMT

well i would like to see the day when it's completely out of the picture. I am hopeful 😀

Re: Shapefile Phaseout

BarryNorthey — Tue, 29 Jul 2025 20:45:11 GMT

Opinion: Shapefiles have many limitations and as far as I am concerned should never be used for analytic work unless they are the only option. They are however an open format often used/needed to move spatial data between esri and non esri applications and thus are unlikely to be abandoned by esri.They are also unlikely to suffer the fate of personal databases that were rendered obsolete by Microsoft for 64 bit ArcGIS Pro. It's similar in some ways to the simple non proprietary csv text file format that can be used to move certain data between various applications such as Excel, SPSS, Notepad, relational databases, etc.

Re: Shapefile Phaseout

RTPL_AU — Wed, 30 Jul 2025 01:08:10 GMT

@Ed_ Unlikely to ever happen seeing as so many other tools now use SHP files or proclaim to now support exporting to 'Specialised GIS formats' aka shp files. Cough, mine planning, cough.

Answer this, but be honest - You can choose one to be the all pervasive inter-discipline sharing standard:

Re: Shapefile Phaseout

Ed_ — Thu, 31 Jul 2025 16:07:01 GMT

it can still be replaced with a file format that's all inclusive. For non ESRI applications there are tools with in Pro that let you do the conversion such as Table to Excel and etc.