filter display of items within ArcCatalog contents

[JohnCartwright]

In working with ArcCatalog database connections, it would be very helpful to be able to filter the objects that are displayed much like Oracle's SQL Developer does.  It could even be a single option to display only items owned by the current user rather than all items visible to the current user.

[Anonymous User]

Additional filters that only show spatial data would also be very useful.

[JoeEckmann]

A spatial data filter would be well received by the user community.

[ShawnBlaesing-Thompson]

We use both GeoMedia and ArcGIS to work with Oracle data.  Right now spatial data is the only thing that shows up in the connection in GeoMedia when we access the database.  When we go in through ArcGIS with an ArcSDE connection we see the spatial data as well as hundreds of public tables also in the database.  We would like to not see the public tables (which we don't index/reference with SDE) and only see the spatial data that we index/reference with SDE.

[deleted-user-UxcAu2PHrDQp]

Geomedia allows not only spatial tables, but business data tables to be registered and seen by GeoMedia.  ESRI desktop software needs to follow this lead to make their software more user friendly with Oracle.

[ChristopherOman]

This filter would be well recieved by the user community.

[SteveXu]

I recommend both ArcMap and ArcCatalog can filter/search data in databases. Thanks

[JordynMitchell]

http://arcscripts.esri.com/details.asp?dbid=14236
this does exactly that.  It will work at 10.1 but not 10.2 for some reason.  sure would love to see this code work again.  how hard can it be?

[KatieBrander]

This functionality is asked for frequently by our ArcGIS Desktop users. It would greatly enhance the usability of ArcCatalog! 

[ValeriaChavez]

Hi @JohnCartwright 

ArcGIS Desktop retired March 1, 2026 so we won’t be considering this idea. We recommend that you migrate to ArcGIS Pro, our fully supported desktop GIS application. 

In ArcGIS Pro, you can use the catalog view to filter, sort, and search items within databases and folders.

Thank you for taking the time to share your ideas. We truly appreciate your contributions to continuously improving the software to help you do your work and look forward to what ideas you have for ArcGIS Pro.