Delete a thumbnail from an item's metadata.

Summary

It isn’t possible to delete an item’s thumbnail from the ArcCatalog user interface, however this can be accomplished using a simple VBA script.

Procedure

1. Select the item in ArcCatalog whose thumbnail you want to delete.
2. Open the Visual Basic Editor in ArcCatalog.
   
   
   In ArcCatalog, select Tools > Macros > Visual Basic Editor.
   
   
3. Copy the VBA script below into a module.
   
   

   Code:
   Sub deleteThumbnail()
       Dim pGxApp As IGxApplication
       Dim pGxObj As IGxObject
       Dim pMD As IMetadata
       Dim pXPS As IXmlPropertySet
       
       Set pGxApp = Application
       Set pGxObj = pGxApp.SelectedObject
       Set pMD = pGxObj
       Set pXPS = pMD.Metadata
       
       pXPS.DeletePropertyByAttribute "EsriPropertyType", "Picture", True
       pMD.Metadata = pXPS
   End Sub
   

   
   
4. Run the script.
   
   

   Note:
   If the thumbnail was created with ArcInfo 8.0.2, the thumbnail may reside within a Browse Graphic element that also contains a reference to an external graphic file that describes the dataset. To delete the thumbnail without deleting the other Browse Graphic information, change the Boolean parameter in the DeletePropertyByAttribute method from True to False.