Deleting records in a table

There are two ways to delete records in ArcMap. You can open the attribute table and delete records, or you can use the Delete Features tool (only on spatial data). Deleting records within the Table window always takes place in an edit session. You can delete features with the geoprocessing tool outside an edit session; however, you will not be able to undo this operation.

1. Click the Editor menu on the Editor toolbar and click Start Editing.
2. Right-click the table or layer in the table of contents and choose Open Attribute Table.
3. Select the records you want to delete.

   Press and hold the CTRL key while clicking to select more than one record.

   Note:

   You can navigate the cells in a table by pressing the TAB or arrow keys on your keyboard.

4. Press the DELETE key on the keyboard.

   The geographic features associated with the records, if any, are also deleted.

Tip:

To undo any edit to a table, click the Undo button . You can undo any edits you've made within the current edit session.

Tip:

When in an edit session, you can also right-click the row button on the left side of the table and click Delete Selected to delete the selected records.

Tip:

When you are in Show All Records mode, pressing CTRL+D also deletes the selected records in the same way as pressing the DELETE key. When you are in Show Selected Records mode, CTRL+D deletes the currently highlighted (yellow) records in your selection, making it easy to delete a subset of the records in your current selection.