phpman > man > vacuumdb(1)

VACUUMDB(1)                        PostgreSQL 14.23 Documentation                        VACUUMDB(1)



NAME
       vacuumdb - garbage-collect and analyze a PostgreSQL database

SYNOPSIS
       vacuumdb [connection-option...] [option...] [ -t | --table table [( column [,...] )] ]...
                [dbname]

       vacuumdb [connection-option...] [option...] -a | --all

DESCRIPTION
       vacuumdb is a utility for cleaning a PostgreSQL database.  vacuumdb will also generate
       internal statistics used by the PostgreSQL query optimizer.

       vacuumdb is a wrapper around the SQL command VACUUM. There is no effective difference between
       vacuuming and analyzing databases via this utility and via other methods for accessing the
       server.

OPTIONS
       vacuumdb accepts the following command-line arguments:

       -a
       --all
           Vacuum all databases.

       [-d] dbname
       [--dbname=]dbname
           Specifies the name of the database to be cleaned or analyzed, when -a/--all is not used.
           If this is not specified, the database name is read from the environment variable
           PGDATABASE. If that is not set, the user name specified for the connection is used. The
           dbname can be a connection string. If so, connection string parameters will override any
           conflicting command line options.

       --disable-page-skipping
           Disable skipping pages based on the contents of the visibility map.

               Note
               This option is only available for servers running PostgreSQL 9.6 and later.

       -e
       --echo
           Echo the commands that vacuumdb generates and sends to the server.

       -f
       --full
           Perform “full” vacuuming.

       -F
       --freeze
           Aggressively “freeze” tuples.

       --force-index-cleanup
           Always remove index entries pointing to dead tuples.

               Note
               This option is only available for servers running PostgreSQL 12 and later.

       -j njobs
       --jobs=njobs
           Execute the vacuum or analyze commands in parallel by running njobs commands
           simultaneously. This option may reduce the processing time but it also increases the load
           on the database server.

           vacuumdb will open njobs connections to the database, so make sure your max_connections
           setting is high enough to accommodate all connections.

           Note that using this mode together with the -f (FULL) option might cause deadlock
           failures if certain system catalogs are processed in parallel.

       --min-mxid-age mxid_age
           Only execute the vacuum or analyze commands on tables with a multixact ID age of at least
           mxid_age. This setting is useful for prioritizing tables to process to prevent multixact
           ID wraparound (see Section 25.1.5.1).

           For the purposes of this option, the multixact ID age of a relation is the greatest of
           the ages of the main relation and its associated TOAST table, if one exists. Since the
           commands issued by vacuumdb will also process the TOAST table for the relation if
           necessary, it does not need to be considered separately.

               Note
               This option is only available for servers running PostgreSQL 9.6 and later.

       --min-xid-age xid_age
           Only execute the vacuum or analyze commands on tables with a transaction ID age of at
           least xid_age. This setting is useful for prioritizing tables to process to prevent
           transaction ID wraparound (see Section 25.1.5).

           For the purposes of this option, the transaction ID age of a relation is the greatest of
           the ages of the main relation and its associated TOAST table, if one exists. Since the
           commands issued by vacuumdb will also process the TOAST table for the relation if
           necessary, it does not need to be considered separately.

               Note
               This option is only available for servers running PostgreSQL 9.6 and later.

       --no-index-cleanup
           Do not remove index entries pointing to dead tuples.

               Note
               This option is only available for servers running PostgreSQL 12 and later.

       --no-process-toast
           Skip the TOAST table associated with the table to vacuum, if any.

               Note
               This option is only available for servers running PostgreSQL 14 and later.

       --no-truncate
           Do not truncate empty pages at the end of the table.

               Note
               This option is only available for servers running PostgreSQL 12 and later.

       -P parallel_workers
       --parallel=parallel_workers
           Specify the number of parallel workers for parallel vacuum. This allows the vacuum to
           leverage multiple CPUs to process indexes. See VACUUM(7).

               Note
               This option is only available for servers running PostgreSQL 13 and later.

       -q
       --quiet
           Do not display progress messages.

       --skip-locked
           Skip relations that cannot be immediately locked for processing.

               Note
               This option is only available for servers running PostgreSQL 12 and later.

       -t table [ (column [,...]) ]
       --table=table [ (column [,...]) ]
           Clean or analyze table only. Column names can be specified only in conjunction with the
           --analyze or --analyze-only options. Multiple tables can be vacuumed by writing multiple
           -t switches.

               Tip
               If you specify columns, you probably have to escape the parentheses from the shell.
               (See examples below.)

       -v
       --verbose
           Print detailed information during processing.

       -V
       --version
           Print the vacuumdb version and exit.

       -z
       --analyze
           Also calculate statistics for use by the optimizer.

       -Z
       --analyze-only
           Only calculate statistics for use by the optimizer (no vacuum).

       --analyze-in-stages
           Only calculate statistics for use by the optimizer (no vacuum), like --analyze-only. Run
           several (currently three) stages of analyze with different configuration settings, to
           produce usable statistics faster.

           This option is useful to analyze a database that was newly populated from a restored dump
           or by pg_upgrade. This option will try to create some statistics as fast as possible, to
           make the database usable, and then produce full statistics in the subsequent stages.

       -?
       --help
           Show help about vacuumdb command line arguments, and exit.

       vacuumdb also accepts the following command-line arguments for connection parameters:

       -h host
       --host=host
           Specifies the host name of the machine on which the server is running. If the value
           begins with a slash, it is used as the directory for the Unix domain socket.

       -p port
       --port=port
           Specifies the TCP port or local Unix domain socket file extension on which the server is
           listening for connections.

       -U username
       --username=username
           User name to connect as.

       -w
       --no-password
           Never issue a password prompt. If the server requires password authentication and a
           password is not available by other means such as a .pgpass file, the connection attempt
           will fail. This option can be useful in batch jobs and scripts where no user is present
           to enter a password.

       -W
       --password
           Force vacuumdb to prompt for a password before connecting to a database.

           This option is never essential, since vacuumdb will automatically prompt for a password
           if the server demands password authentication. However, vacuumdb will waste a connection
           attempt finding out that the server wants a password. In some cases it is worth typing -W
           to avoid the extra connection attempt.

       --maintenance-db=dbname
           When the -a/--all is used, connect to this database to gather the list of databases to
           vacuum. If not specified, the postgres database will be used, or if that does not exist,
           template1 will be used. This can be a connection string. If so, connection string
           parameters will override any conflicting command line options. Also, connection string
           parameters other than the database name itself will be re-used when connecting to other
           databases.

ENVIRONMENT
       PGDATABASE
       PGHOST
       PGPORT
       PGUSER
           Default connection parameters

       PG_COLOR
           Specifies whether to use color in diagnostic messages. Possible values are always, auto
           and never.

       This utility, like most other PostgreSQL utilities, also uses the environment variables
       supported by libpq (see Section 34.15).

DIAGNOSTICS
       In case of difficulty, see VACUUM(7) and psql(1) for discussions of potential problems and
       error messages. The database server must be running at the targeted host. Also, any default
       connection settings and environment variables used by the libpq front-end library will apply.

NOTES
       vacuumdb might need to connect several times to the PostgreSQL server, asking for a password
       each time. It is convenient to have a ~/.pgpass file in such cases. See Section 34.16 for
       more information.

EXAMPLES
       To clean the database test:

           $ vacuumdb test

       To clean and analyze for the optimizer a database named bigdb:

           $ vacuumdb --analyze bigdb

       To clean a single table foo in a database named xyzzy, and analyze a single column bar of the
       table for the optimizer:

           $ vacuumdb --analyze --verbose --table='foo(bar)' xyzzy

SEE ALSO
       VACUUM(7)



PostgreSQL 14.23                                2026                                     VACUUMDB(1)