Can't Delete List Field?

Recently I had to help someone that wasn’t able to delete a field off a list!

Seemed a bit strange I thought.. just go and delete it :)

Well in this case there was a catch - it was sealed. One of their developers had deployed a custom feature containing list fields and had set this particular one to sealed.

This was reasonably easy to figure out by opening up SharePoint Manager 2010 (SPM2010).

By using SPM2010 you can easily navigate the site structure - down to the individual list and then see each of its fields.

If you then click on a field you can view all of its properties - and in SPM2010 you will see a ‘CanBeDeleted’ property.

If you just scroll down to the ‘Sealed’ property and set it to False, then save your changes - you will now be able to delete it.