An overview of the File Geodatabase toolset

The File Geodatabase toolset contains tools for compressing, uncompressing, and licensing file geodatabases.

To reduce storage requirements, you can compress vector file geodatabase feature classes and tables to a read-only format. Files can be reduced to as little as one-fourth their original size. Once compressed, a dataset looks the same in ArcGIS Pro as when it was uncompressed. Also, apart from editing, you work with it the same way. The compressed data is a direct access format, so you do not have to uncompress it each time you access it.

Tool	Description
Compact	Compacts a file or mobile geodatabase, SQLite database, or Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) GeoPackage file. Compacting rearranges data storage, often reducing the file's size and improving performance.
Compress File Geodatabase Data	Compresses all the contents in a geodatabase, all the contents in a feature dataset, or an individual stand-alone feature class or table.
Generate File Geodatabase License	Generates a license file (.sdlic) for displaying the contents in a licensed file geodatabase created by the Generate Licensed File Geodatabase tool.
Generate Licensed File Geodatabase	Generates a license definition file (.licdef) that defines and restricts the display of contents in a file geodatabase. The contents of the licensed file geodatabase can be viewed by creating a license file (*.sdlic) and configuring the ArcGIS clients to recognize it. The license file is created using the Generate File Geodatabase License tool.
Recover File Geodatabase	Recovers data from a file geodatabase that has become corrupt.
Uncompress File Geodatabase Data	Uncompresses all the contents in a geodatabase, all the contents in a feature dataset, or an individual stand-alone feature class or table.

Related topics

• An overview of the Data Management toolbox

• File geodatabases

• Create File Geodatabase