Opening .aprx files to edit file paths using ArcGIS Pro

Question

Two times a year a positional check of railway assets is performed in ArcGIS Pro for 21 different areas by receiving updated data. Every half a year in each area new data is automatically prepared in a standardized structure and needs to be loaded in a new ArcGIS project file (.aprx). Therefore the file paths in the .aprx file should change to the new data based on the area and date. I know the .aprx files can be unzipped to show .xml files, but I am not sure of best way to edit all the filepaths to load the new data.

This problem is very similar to editing file paths in QGIS .qgz files.

How can I change the file paths in the .aprx file without using ArcPy?

Answer 1

Workaround solution which worked: use .aprx file with relative filepaths (./layername.shp), keep .aprx files and data in same directory and only change the name of the .aprx file for each area.

Answer 2

In the view tab of ArcGIS Pro, use the 'Catalog View' button to open the catalog. Open the Map folder, double click your map item, then use the Data Sources tool from the ribbon to open the file current and new paths for each layer in your map. They can be edited individually, or with the Find and Replace tool to do it en mass, just like ctrl+f in excel. Once you're happy, hit the dropdown under apply to Apply and Validate.

Not quite as precise as you'd like but perhaps you can make it work despite your qualifers.