An overview of the ModelBuilder toolbox

The ModelBuilder toolbox provides a varied collection of tools that support building models and are intended for use only in ModelBuilder and not in Python scripting.

Note:

The ModelBuilder toolbox is not a toolbox on disk like other toolboxes. The toolbox and its tools do not appear in the Catalog, ArcToolbox, or Search window. The only way you can access the tools in the ModelBuilder toolbox is from the Insert menu in the ModelBuilder window.

Legacy:

Prior to version 10, the Calculate Value, Merge Branch, and Select Data tools resided in the Data Management toolbox, General toolset. They can still be accessed there. Copies of these three tools are also in the ModelBuilder toolbox.

In ModelBuilder, you can iterate the entire model or an individual process using tools in the Iterators toolset. In addition to the iterator tools, ModelBuilder has a set of supporting tools called Model Only tools.

Toolsets in the ModelBuilder toolbox

Toolset	Description
Iterators	The Iterators toolset has twelve iterators that help repeat a process or set of processes on a set of inputs.
Model Only Tools	The Model Only Tools toolset contains tools that are only used in ModelBuilder. Some of the tools are used to control the flow of processing while others are simple support utilities.