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

       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.

       [-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 several (currently three) stages of analyze with different configuration settings,
           to produce usable statistics faster.

           This option is useful to analyze a database that was newly populated from a restored
           dump or by pg_upgrade. This option will try to create some statistics as fast as
           possible, to make the database usable, and then produce full statistics in the
           subsequent 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 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)