merge-unmerge, please help

[KatarinaB]

Hello,
I have a big problem...I have merged polygons, many of them. This was mistake in my work, so I want to know is there any possibility to unmerge it? To return my old polygons that have disapired...Is there any hope for it?:(
Thank you a lot.

[RichardFairhurst]

Hello,
I have a big problem...I have merged polygons, many of them. This was mistake in my work, so I want to know is there any possibility to unmerge it? To return my old polygons that have disapired...Is there any hope for it?:(
Thank you a lot.

I assume you have saved the edits already, since you could use undo if you were still in the edit session where you did the merge.  If you were using SDE and had not committed the child version you were editing you could salvage the original data it it was posted in the unmerged state to a parent version.

If it is a shapefile, personal geodatabase or file geodatabase, you could only salvage your work if you had some sort of back up created by your IT department, which should be occurring if you keep your data on a network drive.  I hope that helps.

[JohnSobetzer]

If you are using Windows 8 and file history is enabled maybe you can find an older version.  In Windows 7 previous versions might allow the same.  I've never used either, yet, and it strikes me it might be difficult to use either with folder type entities like coverages which also have info tables, or file geodatabases.  But shapefiles with their limited files in number and sharing the same name, just different extensions, might be more feasible.

[KatarinaB]

Saving old files didn't work, we had some issues with our back up files. I had to work all over again 😕
thank you all for your answers!

[MelanieSummers]

If you merged features that do not share a boundary, you may be able to run the multipart to singlepart tool.

Best,
Melanie S.

[KatarinaB]

unfortunately, they have! thanks anyway!
K.

[shanyu]

If you merged features that do not share a boundary, you may be able to run the multipart to singlepart tool.

Best,
Melanie S.

That is exactly what I want!

[TimLane]

Multipart to single part can be useful, but with my understanding you cannot specify records within a feature layer. I was looking for a solution to this same problem where I had about 5 or 6 records within my "landscaping" layer that I had merged at one point but now realize they should be separate. Multipart to single part would have ran across all of the records when I really only wanted to touch the 5 or 6. What I found to work (in arcpro 2.4.0) is the 'Explode' Tool within the Tools section of your edit tab. You might have to scroll down a few but this worked exactly how I was wanting. I hope this helps any who are still searching this thread.