{"id":2764072,"date":"2025-04-21T09:05:07","date_gmt":"2025-04-21T16:05:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/?post_type=blog&p=2764072"},"modified":"2025-07-10T14:56:46","modified_gmt":"2025-07-10T21:56:46","slug":"arcgis-pro-memory-workspace","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/products\/arcgis-pro\/analytics\/arcgis-pro-memory-workspace","title":{"rendered":"Faster geoprocessing and efficient data management using the memory workspace in ArcGIS Pro (April 2025)"},"author":314022,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_searchwp_excluded":""},"categories":[23341,37101],"tags":[778722,775372,39401,773052,24331],"industry":[],"product":[36561],"class_list":["post-2764072","blog","type-blog","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-analytics","category-announcements","tag-arcgis-pro-3-5","tag-buffer","tag-geoprocessing-tool","tag-geoprocessing-tools","tag-modelbuilder","product-arcgis-pro"],"acf":{"authors":[{"ID":314022,"user_firstname":"Margaret","user_lastname":"Crawford","nickname":"Margaret Crawford","user_nicename":"mcrawford","display_name":"Margaret Crawford","user_email":"mcrawford@esri.com","user_url":"","user_registered":"2022-06-28 19:13:27","user_description":"Margaret is a Product Engineer on the Geoprocessing team. Her passion for GIS began with her interest in human-environmental relationships, and her graduate thesis studied the growing impact of flood-induced cascading disasters caused by sea level rise. Margaret leverages her foundation in research methodologies and spatial analysis techniques in her role at Esri, where she creates written content and demonstrations on features in ArcGIS Pro. She also contributes to refining and redesigning geoprocessing tools and functions. In her personal life, Margaret is a loving cat parent to three beautiful cats, and enjoys swimming and snowboarding.","user_avatar":""}],"short_description":"Learn how to save geoprocessing tool outputs to the memory workspace in ArcGIS Pro","flexible_content":[{"acf_fc_layout":"image","image":{"ID":2764122,"id":2764122,"title":"Picture1","filename":"Picture1-e1744999789921.webp","filesize":12030,"url":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Picture1-e1744999789921.webp","link":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/products\/arcgis-pro\/analytics\/arcgis-pro-memory-workspace\/picture1-115","alt":"","author":"314022","description":"","caption":"","name":"picture1-115","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":2764072,"date":"2025-04-18 15:08:20","modified":"2025-04-18 15:08:20","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/webp","type":"image","subtype":"webp","icon":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":700,"height":467,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Picture1-213x200.webp","thumbnail-width":213,"thumbnail-height":200,"medium":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Picture1-e1744999789921.webp","medium-width":391,"medium-height":261,"medium_large":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Picture1-e1744999789921.webp","medium_large-width":700,"medium_large-height":467,"large":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Picture1-e1744999789921.webp","large-width":700,"large-height":467,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Picture1-e1744999789921.webp","1536x1536-width":700,"1536x1536-height":467,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Picture1-e1744999789921.webp","2048x2048-width":700,"2048x2048-height":467,"card_image":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Picture1-698x465.webp","card_image-width":698,"card_image-height":465,"wide_image":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Picture1-e1744999789921.webp","wide_image-width":700,"wide_image-height":467}},"image_position":"center","orientation":"horizontal","hyperlink":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"

Estimated Read Time: <\/strong><\/span>5 minutes<\/p>\n

Do you remember in school when your teacher would write notes on a whiteboard (or chalkboard, depending on your age) as they spoke? After each lesson, they would erase the board to make space for the next topic.<\/p>\n

Now, consider your current work habits in ArcGIS Pro<\/strong>. You run numerous tools multiple times a day. By default, you save all your output datasets to the project geodatabase via the Workspace<\/a> geoprocessing environment.<\/p>\n

What if I told you, you could work faster and stay more organized using the whiteboard instead?<\/em><\/p>\n

That\u2019s precisely what writing geoprocessing tool outputs to the memory workspace<\/a> allows you to do! Instead of saving your output datasets to a database or folder on disk (or on a network), you can store temporary datasets in memory, just like writing notes on a whiteboard.<\/p>\n

In this blog, we will explore what the memory workspace is, its benefits, and some new updates in ArcGIS Pro 3.5<\/strong>.<\/p>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"kaltura","video_id":"1_3nvlhxpe","time":false,"start":0,"stop":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"

About the memory workspace<\/span><\/h1>\n

The memory workspace is a powerful, yet underutilized feature that enables you to store temporary data directly in your computer system memory. Memory, also known as RAM<\/a>, is a computer’s \u201cshort-term\u201d memory. When you write a tool\u2019s output feature class, raster, or table to the memory workspace it will only exist during the active session, and once ArcGIS Pro<\/strong> is closed, the memory is cleared.<\/p>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"image","image":{"ID":2764182,"id":2764182,"title":"picture2","filename":"picture2-2.png","filesize":19013,"url":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2025\/04\/picture2-2.png","link":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/products\/arcgis-pro\/analytics\/arcgis-pro-memory-workspace\/picture2-77","alt":"Data saved in memory gets deleted when ArcGIS Pro is closed","author":"314022","description":"","caption":"","name":"picture2-77","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":2764072,"date":"2025-04-18 15:15:14","modified":"2025-04-18 15:18:05","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/png","type":"image","subtype":"png","icon":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":468,"height":263,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2025\/04\/picture2-2-213x200.png","thumbnail-width":213,"thumbnail-height":200,"medium":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2025\/04\/picture2-2.png","medium-width":464,"medium-height":261,"medium_large":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2025\/04\/picture2-2.png","medium_large-width":468,"medium_large-height":263,"large":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2025\/04\/picture2-2.png","large-width":468,"large-height":263,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2025\/04\/picture2-2.png","1536x1536-width":468,"1536x1536-height":263,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2025\/04\/picture2-2.png","2048x2048-width":468,"2048x2048-height":263,"card_image":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2025\/04\/picture2-2.png","card_image-width":468,"card_image-height":263,"wide_image":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2025\/04\/picture2-2.png","wide_image-width":468,"wide_image-height":263}},"image_position":"center","orientation":"horizontal","hyperlink":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"

Note:<\/strong> If you want to clear the memory workspace without closing Pro, just use the Delete<\/strong><\/a> tool and specify memory as the input.<\/em><\/p>\n

Because memory datasets are stored in your computer\u2019s RAM, they cannot be viewed from the Catalog<\/strong> pane<\/a> or view<\/a> in a database or folder connection. But layers with a memory data source will display on the map and are listed in the Contents<\/strong> pane.<\/p>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"image","image":{"ID":2764252,"id":2764252,"title":"picture3","filename":"picture3.png","filesize":24904,"url":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2025\/04\/picture3.png","link":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/products\/arcgis-pro\/analytics\/arcgis-pro-memory-workspace\/picture3-68","alt":"Contents pane List By Data Sources tab","author":"314022","description":"","caption":"View datasets saved to the memory workspace from the Contents pane List By Data Sources tab","name":"picture3-68","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":2764072,"date":"2025-04-18 15:30:31","modified":"2025-04-18 15:30:59","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/png","type":"image","subtype":"png","icon":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":330,"height":391,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2025\/04\/picture3-213x200.png","thumbnail-width":213,"thumbnail-height":200,"medium":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2025\/04\/picture3.png","medium-width":220,"medium-height":261,"medium_large":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2025\/04\/picture3.png","medium_large-width":330,"medium_large-height":391,"large":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2025\/04\/picture3.png","large-width":330,"large-height":391,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2025\/04\/picture3.png","1536x1536-width":330,"1536x1536-height":391,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2025\/04\/picture3.png","2048x2048-width":330,"2048x2048-height":391,"card_image":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2025\/04\/picture3.png","card_image-width":330,"card_image-height":391,"wide_image":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2025\/04\/picture3.png","wide_image-width":330,"wide_image-height":391}},"image_position":"center","orientation":"horizontal","hyperlink":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"

Memory Workspace Advantages<\/span><\/h1>\n

You may be thinking, why would I want a dataset to automatically delete itself?<\/em> There are advantages and situations where it may be beneficial to save tool outputs temporarily:<\/p>\n