How do you delete or remove raster pyramids?

Have you ever wanted to delete pyramids from your raster dataset?  Some might  delete their .RRD or .OVR file (which is not recommended).  And of course if you are using an geodatabase raster dataset, that method will not be possible.

So how do I delete my pyramids from my raster?
In order to remove your pyramids, you need to run the Build Pyramids geoprocessing tool with 0 levels built.
1) Open the Build Pyramids tool.
2) Choose the input raster dataset for which you would like to remove the pyramids

3) Click on the Environments button
4) Expand Raster Storage

5) For the Pyramid Levels parameter, type 0
6) Click OK on the Environment Setting
7) Click OK to run the Build Pyramids tool

Check the Properties of your raster dataset, and make sure that the pyramids have been removed.

About the author

Simon W

Simon is an Esri product engineer on the Raster team. He works mainly with Pixel Editor, raster visualization, georeferencing, and documentation.