NAME

       vacuumlo - remove orphaned large objects from a PostgreSQL database

SYNOPSIS

       vacuumlo [option...] dbname...

DESCRIPTION

       vacuumlo is a simple utility program that will remove any “orphaned” large objects from a PostgreSQL
       database. An orphaned large object (LO) is considered to be any LO whose OID does not appear in any oid
       or lo data column of the database.

       If you use this, you may also be interested in the lo_manage trigger in the lo module.  lo_manage is
       useful to try to avoid creating orphaned LOs in the first place.

       All databases named on the command line are processed.

OPTIONS

       vacuumlo accepts the following command-line arguments:

       -l limit
       --limit=limit
           Remove no more than limit large objects per transaction (default 1000). Since the server acquires a
           lock per LO removed, removing too many LOs in one transaction risks exceeding
           max_locks_per_transaction. Set the limit to zero if you want all removals done in a single
           transaction.

       -n
       --dry-run
           Don't remove anything, just show what would be done.

       -v
       --verbose
           Write a lot of progress messages.

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

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

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

       -h host
       --host=host
           Database server's host.

       -p port
       --port=port
           Database server's port.

       -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 vacuumlo to prompt for a password before connecting to a database.

           This option is never essential, since vacuumlo will automatically prompt for a password if the server
           demands password authentication. However, vacuumlo 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.

ENVIRONMENT

       PGHOST
       PGPORT
       PGUSER
           Default connection parameters.

       This utility, like most other PostgreSQL utilities, also uses the environment variables supported by
       libpq (see Section 32.15).

       The environment variable PG_COLOR specifies whether to use color in diagnostic messages. Possible values
       are always, auto and never.

NOTES

       vacuumlo works by the following method: First, vacuumlo builds a temporary table which contains all of
       the OIDs of the large objects in the selected database. It then scans through all columns in the database
       that are of type oid or lo, and removes matching entries from the temporary table. (Note: Only types with
       these names are considered; in particular, domains over them are not considered.) The remaining entries
       in the temporary table identify orphaned LOs. These are removed.

AUTHOR

       Peter Mount <peter@retep.org.uk>

PostgreSQL 17.5                                       2025                                           VACUUMLO(1)