Repair automatically recreated geodatabases in ArcGIS Pro and prevent reoccurrence

Summary

In ArcGIS Pro 3.6 and later, deleting, renaming, or moving a default geodatabase associated with a project, or making it inaccessible outside ArcGIS Pro, causes ArcGIS Pro to automatically create a new default geodatabase when the project is reopened.

This behavior can result in unnecessary geodatabases, and the workflow provided below repairs and prevents these geodatabases from being recreated.

Procedure

1. Open the project in ArcGIS Pro.
2. Click Project > Options.
3. In the Options dialog box, click General.
4. Click Repair Project Items to open the drop-down list.
5. Under Default Geodatabase Handling, select Prompt to specify a different geodatabase.
6. Click OK. 

7. In the Catalog pane, click Databases to open the drop down-list.
8. Right-click the geodatabase and select Show In File Explorer.
9. In the Windows File Explorer window, delete the recently created geodatabase folder.
10. Close and re-open the ArcGIS Pro project.
11. When prompted with the Project Item Repair dialog box, click the Select Default Geodatabase button to browse and select an existing geodatabase or create a new one in a specific location.