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
           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 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 17.5                                       2025                                           VACUUMDB(1)