Using the Purge Tool in Autodesk Revit

Keeping your Revit project free of unused elements and maintaining its cleanliness is crucial to prevent file size from increasing and model corruption from occurring. This blog will provide insights into using the Purge tool and cleaning up families that are loaded into the project. 

Why Purging Unused Elements Is Important 

To reduce the file size and improve performance while working on your Revit model, you will want to perform a purge towards the end lifecycle of your project and remove unused elements from a project, including individual component types.  

• Some elements are nested in other elements, and it might require several rounds of purging the project to remove them. 
• Purging unused components helps simplify the list of families loaded in a project. 

How To: Purge Unused Elements 

Note: Before purging, it’s important that you save a backup of your project. 

1. In the Manage tab>Settings panel, click Purge Unused. 
2. In the Purge Unused dialog box, click Check None and select only the elements you want to purge. 
    
3. Click OK. You can open the Purge Unused dialog box again and verify that the elements you wanted to remove have been removed. 

Note: Elements in the purge unused list that are completely grayed out indicate that the family and sub-components are being utilized in the model or in a family and cannot be deleted.  
 

• If the checkbox is grayed out, you can expand the node and review the sub-components of families that can be purged. 

Maintaining the cleanliness and efficiency of your Revit project by purging unused elements is an essential practice for any design firm. By following the steps outlined in this blog, you can effectively manage your project's file size, improve its performance, and simplify your workflow. We hope you find this information valuable and that it enhances your day-to-day workflow. 

About the Author

Learning Content Developer<br><br>Cherisse is an Autodesk Certified Professional for Revit as well as an Autodesk Certified Instructor. She brings over 19 years of industry, teaching, and technical support experience to her role as a Learning Content Developer with ASCENT. With a passion for design and architecture, she received her Associates of Applied Science in Architectural Drafting and Design with a four-year core curriculum in Interior Design and has worked in the industry assisting firms with their CAD management and software implementation needs as they modernize to a Building Information Modeling (BIM) design environment. Cherisse continues to expand her knowledge in the ever evolving AEC industry and the software used to support it.

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