vacuumdb vacuumdb 1 Application vacuumdb garbage-collect and analyze a PostgreSQL database vacuumdb connection-option option -t --table table ( column [,...] ) dbname vacuumdb connection-option option -a --all 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. 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. 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. 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 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 ). 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. 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 ). 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. 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. 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. 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. 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 . 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. 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. 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 ) 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. 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 ). In case of difficulty, see and 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. 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 for more information. 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