VACUUMDB(1)

📦 version 15.19, in opensuse-leap 16.0

💅✨ VACUUMDB(1) ✨💅

okay bestie, welcome to the PostgreSQL 15.19 Documentation page for vacuumdb — and yes, we're gonna make it make sense 💖. this is literally the manual for the utility that keeps your PostgreSQL database clean and your query optimizer well-fed. no cap. let's get into it.

🌸 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 🎀

okay so vacuumdb is literally a utility for cleaning a PostgreSQL database 🧼✨. it will also generate internal statistics that the PostgreSQL query optimizer uses — so it's not just about tidying up, it's also feeding the brain of your query planner 💅.

and here's the tea: 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. so you're not missing out on any secret sauce, bestie. it's the same vibe either way 🫶.

✨ 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 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. ❓

🔌 Connection Parameters 🔌

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 🌈

okay so these are the env vars that matter, bestie:

  • 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)

and that's the whole vibe, bestie 💖 — this has been the VACUUMDB(1) page from PostgreSQL 15.19, dated 2026, and it's literally everything you need to know about vacuumdb. now go keep those databases clean and those optimizers happy. slay. 💅✨

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