For those of you that have access to the Autodesk Subscription centre, there is a little tool tucked away in the list of downloads called eTransmit for Revit.

eTransmit? Surely not! That is an AutoCAD thing right? Wrong.

This tool will allow you to:

• Include related dependent files such as linked models and DWF markups.
• Upgrade the Revit (.rvt) model and linked models to the current release.
• Remove unused families, materials, and other objects from the Revit projects to reduce file size.

I had to issue 25 models today, in both RVT and IFC formats. The RVT files needed to be purged, audited and have all the views except 2 stripped out. A daunting task just due to the amount of mind numbing clicking and waiting needed to get to the end result.

You can find eTransmit under the Add-ins tab of the ribbon once it is installed.

Then just simply adjust a few settings and away you go. If you want to purge the files, make sure to check the radio button asking Open and save models in the active version of Revit and then obviously tick the check box Purge all unused. eTransmit won’t actually generate any views, so it’s quite quick.

The results, I purged an electrical services model from 87mb to 31mb in 3 minutes.

All 25 models complete in under an hour.

Oh, and the best part? When you open the file you see this little dialogue box. The file will not be re-created as a central until you choose it to be. There is absolutely no risk of someone accidentally opening the file in your outgoing files folder and syncing back the changes.