Following a spatial join, the workaround I mention here requires me to select at least one field from my join data.
Having done so, I have an extraneous field in my layer with an active spatial join. Seeking to make a permanent layer, I R click > Data > Export features.
Here, under Fields, I navigate down to the extra field (Loc_name in this case) and click the red X. I expect this to mean that this field will not appear when I click run.
Incorrect!
The field still appears in my output feature class. It also reappears when I go to reopen the tool from my GP history:
The same happens even if I click Edit and remove it from the pop-out window.
This is a suggestion to have the red X functionality remove the field from the output. I am unsure what it is doing currently, but it would be much more useful if that's what it did.