[GIS] Downloading Geodatabase to ArcCatalog

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I think this is a fairly easy question so apologies. Someone sent me a .gdb in Google Drive. When I download it to my computer, it is a file folder with all the .gdb contents in it. I can't figure out how to add it as a .gdb in ArcCatalog – I know it must be straightforward but I'd be very grateful if someone could explain it to me. Thanks in advance!

Best Answer

An Esri File Geodatabase consists of multiple individual files stored within a directory with the extension ".gdb"

If this is appearing in ArcCatalog as a folder, rather than a geodatabase, it is likely that the geodatabase is corrupt, possibly as a result of being shared via Google Drive.

Try asking the original sender to zip the entire *.gdb folder and send you the zip file, to avoid the corruption.