Why does the MXD size increase over time when you save it?
Obviously you drop data in the map while doing work but then you delete it (temporary clipped shps, tiffs, excel/database).
[GIS] MXD size increasing when saving it
arcgis-10.1arcgis-desktopmxd
Related Solutions
I have read instances where old mxds (9.3) can act wonky when opened in later versions. It would be worth it to try and rule this out by creating a blank 10.1 mxd and copying your layers over. Maybe this will help narrow down the issue if it persists?
This has been partially answered in other posts:
- Remove username and password from saved arcgis layer (.lyr) files?,
- Changing workspace path of query layer using ArcPy? and
- Is it possible to set data source of ArcMap MXD via replica MXD on remote server?,
but I want to make it exceedingly clear here.
Non-Solution: You might be thinking: Ahh..Just go back into the connection in ArcCatalog, remove my username/password and un-click "Save Username and password", save the connection and save the mxd. WRONG. The connection information for the layer is already cached in the mxd. Changing the connection won't do anything. Even deleting the connection from ArcCatalog won't do anything. Try deleting it and restarting ArcMap with the mxd, it connects back to the database without a problem because the connection is cached in the mxd.
Solution #1 - Manually: You need to create a new database connection where you have NOT clicked "Save username and password". All the layers added to an mxd that were using a connection with username/password saved need to be changed to use this new connection, or you could start with a new mxd. Unfortunately, if you have a lot of cartographic customizations you are going to lose them. (If you can trick the problem data source into failing, say change the account's password, re-open the mxd, see the red exclamation points, create a new connection without username/password, then Data > Repair Connections and point to the new connection, you may be able to change them all at once and keep your cartography.) After you're done, re-open the mxd and you should be prompted for username / password. Then, you know you can safely share away!
Solution #2 - Python Script: From ArcGIS Help, http://resources.arcgis.com/en/help/main/10.1/index.html#//00s30000004p000000 , see the latter part of the section “SDE connection properties are changed” where it mentions setting the validate parameter to False.
"SDE connection properties are changed ... In this scenario, a user wants to remove the password information saved within a map document. The data sources in the map document came from an SDE connection file where the password information was saved with the connection information. Next, the user created a new SDE connection file to the same database, but this time did not save the password information. In the script below, the validate parameter must be set to False for the password information to be successfully removed. After the script is run, a user will need to log in to open the resulting map document."
import arcpy
mxd = arcpy.mapping.MapDocument(r"C:\Project\Project_default.mxd")
#The connection is probably here r"Database Connections\myConnectionFile.sde"
mxd.findAndReplaceWorkspacePaths(r"C:\Project\Connection with password info saved.sde", r"C:\Project\Connection with no password info saved.sde", False)
From the ESRI documentation and some other posts, this has some limitations. Mostly they concern less frequently used types of data such as raster, query layers, label expressions, etc.
A note on tracking down mxds that have your DB account and keep locking it, commonly, your database will be logging IP addresses and sometimes logging the OS user along with the DB user who has logged in. Check with your DBA for help. Alternately, give up on the account and create a new one.
Best Answer
There are Esri Technical Articles that explain this.
"Map documents (.mxd files) are compound files. The information describing the map, layout, and any embedded objects saved in the map is organized into units called storages and streams. When you save a compound file, the streams can become fragmented in a process that is analogous to hard disk fragmentation. This can make the map document larger, though it does not increase the likelihood of the document becoming corrupted. The more times you save a map, the more chance that fragmentation will make the document larger.
Using Save As and selecting a new file name creates a new document with no fragmentation. You can save a fragmented map document as a new document to reduce its file size."