You know how it is when you have to upgrade servers or folder structures and you know you have to break links in your projects?  Even with careful planning and good habits (like storing relative path names) sometimes you have no choice. 

I came across a great tool while browsing for a solution to this problem.  It’s an add in for ArcCatalog and I found it here https://community.esri.com/blogs/myAlaskaGIS/2015/08/31/python-addin-for-data-inventory-and-broken-link-repair.  It was a developed by the Alaska Dept of Fish & Game and works fine with ArcMap 10.6

 

Be sure to read the webpage and the readme file for instructions on how it all works. Within a folder (and its subfolders) you can inventory all your geodatabases, list all your spatial data, and there’s a tool to find all the broken links in your MXDs.  The tool outputs a .txt, .csv and .xls report for each function. 

 

To repair broken links BACK UP YOUR FOLDERS BEFORE YOU BEGIN. Then you open the report on broken sources and simply enter the correct path in the space provided, update the data type from “_review”, save it with a new name and then run the final tool to fix the paths.

 

It’s really easy to use and has come in very handy.

 

Meghan C. McGaffin

GIS Coordinator

 

195 Church Street, New Haven, CT 06510

203.344.7887 | mminc.com

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