vacuumdb(1) PostgreSQL 17.4 Documentation vacuumdb(1)
NAME
vacuumdb - garbage-collect and analyze a PostgreSQL database
SYNOPSIS
vacuumdb [connection-option...] [option...]
[ -t | --table table [( column [,...] )] ]...
[dbname | -a | --all]
vacuumdb [connection-option...] [option...] [ -n | --schema schema ]...
[dbname | -a | --all]
vacuumdb [connection-option...] [option...]
[ -N | --exclude-schema schema ]... [dbname | -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.
--buffer-usage-limit size
Specifies the Buffer Access Strategy ring buffer size for a given
invocation of vacuumdb. This size is used to calculate the number
of shared buffers which will be reused as part of this strategy.
See VACUUM(7).
[-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.
-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.
-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 24.1.5.1).
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.
--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 24.1.5).
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.
-n schema
--schema=schema
Clean or analyze all tables in schema only. Multiple schemas can be
vacuumed by writing multiple -n switches.
-N schema
--exclude-schema=schema
Do not clean or analyze any tables in schema. Multiple schemas can
be excluded by writing multiple -N switches.
--no-index-cleanup
Do not remove index entries pointing to dead tuples.
--no-process-main
Skip the main relation.
--no-process-toast
Skip the TOAST table associated with the table to vacuum, if any.
--no-truncate
Do not truncate empty pages at the end of the table.
-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).
-q
--quiet
Do not display progress messages.
--skip-locked
Skip relations that cannot be immediately locked for processing.
-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 three stages of analyze; the first stage
uses the lowest possible statistics target (see
default_statistics_target) to produce usable statistics faster, and
subsequent stages build the full statistics.
This option is only useful to analyze a database that currently has
no statistics or has wholly incorrect ones, such as if it is newly
populated from a restored dump or by pg_upgrade. Be aware that
running with this option in a database with existing statistics may
cause the query optimizer choices to become transiently worse due
to the low statistics targets of the early 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
Specifies the name of the database to connect to to discover which
databases should be vacuumed, when -a/--all is used. 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 32.15).
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.
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
To clean all tables in the foo and bar schemas in a database named
xyzzy:
$ vacuumdb --schema='foo' --schema='bar' xyzzy
SEE ALSO
VACUUM(7)
PostgreSQL 17.4 2025 vacuumdb(1)
postgresql 17.4 - Generated Sat Mar 22 11:55:52 CDT 2025