List all MXDs that a feature class is in using arcpy

Question

I know it is possible to list the paths of feature classes that are in an MXD using arcpy. But is it possible to do the reverse -- to list all the MXDs that a feature class is in?

I am trying to organize very full file geodatabases that have >1000 feature classes in them. My client wants to keep those feature classes that are used in the most frequently used MXDs. To do this, I was thinking that maybe it was possible to run through every feature class and get a list of every MXD it is in and go from there. Can I do this?

Answer 1

As mentioned in the comments, if you can get all the MXDs in a single location, you can run over each MXD and find each layer stored within. The below code will return a dictionary of layers' datasources used in each MXD of a directory and the MXD name which they're found in.

import arcpy
import os

mxdDir = r'C:\path\to\directory\of\MXDs'

mxdDict = {}

for mxd in os.listdir(mxdDir):
    mxdPath = os.path.join(mxdDir, mxd)
    mxdDoc = arcpy.mapping.MapDocument(mxdPath)

    for layer in arcpy.mapping.ListLayers(mxdDoc, "", ""):
        if layer.supports("DATASOURCE"):
            ds = layer.dataSource
            if ds not in mxdDict:
                mxdDict[ds] = [mxd]
            elif mxd in mxdDict[ds]:
                pass
            else:
                mxdDict[ds].append(mxd)