Where does PostgreSQL store the database? - postgresql

Question

Where are the files for a PostgreSQL database stored?

Answer 1

To see where the data directory is, use this query.
show data_directory;
To see all the run-time parameters, use
show all;
You can create tablespaces to store database objects in other parts of the filesystem. To see tablespaces, which might not be in that data directory, use this query.
SELECT *, pg_tablespace_location(oid) FROM pg_tablespace;

Answer 2

On Windows7 all the databases are referred by a number in the file named pg_database under C:\Program Files (x86)\PostgreSQL\8.2\data\global. Then you should search for the folder name by that number under C:\Program Files (x86)\PostgreSQL\8.2\data\base. That is the content of the database.

Answer 3

As suggested in "PostgreSQL database default location on Linux", under Linux you can find out using the following command:
ps aux | grep postgres | grep -- -D

Answer 4

Open pgAdmin and go to Properties for specific database. Find OID and then open directory
<POSTGRESQL_DIRECTORY>/data/base/<OID>
There should be your DB files.

Answer 5

Under my Linux installation, it's here: /var/lib/postgresql/8.x/
You can change it with initdb -D "c:/mydb/"

Answer 6

Everyone already answered but just for the latest updates. If you want to know where all the configuration files reside then run this command in the shell
SELECT name, setting FROM pg_settings WHERE category = 'File Locations';

Answer 7

I'd bet you're asking this question because you've tried pg_ctl start and received the following error:
pg_ctl: no database directory specified and environment variable PGDATA unset
In other words, you're looking for the directory to put after -D in your pg_ctl start command.
In this case, the directory you're looking for contains these files.
PG_VERSION pg_dynshmem pg_multixact
pg_snapshots pg_tblspc postgresql.conf
base pg_hba.conf pg_notify
pg_stat pg_twophase postmaster.opts
global pg_ident.conf pg_replslot
pg_stat_tmp pg_xlog postmaster.pid
pg_clog pg_logical pg_serial
pg_subtrans postgresql.auto.conf server.log
You can locate it by locating any of the files and directories above using the search provided with your OS.
For example in my case (a HomeBrew install on Mac OS X), these files are located in /usr/local/var/postgres. To start the server I type:
pg_ctl -D /usr/local/var/postgres -w start
... and it works.

Answer 8

Postgres stores data in files in its data directory. Follow the steps below to go to a database and its files:
The database corresponding to a postgresql table file is a directory. The location of the entire data directory can be obtained by running SHOW data_directory.
in a UNIX like OS (eg: Mac) /Library/PostgreSQL/9.4/data
Go inside the base folder in the data directory which has all the database folders: /Library/PostgreSQL/9.4/data/base
Find the database folder name by running (Gives an integer. This is the database folder name):
SELECT oid from pg_database WHERE datname = <database_name>;
Find the table file name by running (Gives an integer. This is the file name):
SELECT relname, relfilenode FROM pg_class WHERE relname = <table_name>;
This is a binary file. File details such as size and creation date time can be obtained as usual. For more info read this SO thread

Answer 9

The location of specific tables/indexes can be adjusted by TABLESPACEs:
CREATE TABLESPACE dbspace LOCATION '/data/dbs';
CREATE TABLE something (......) TABLESPACE dbspace;
CREATE TABLE otherthing (......) TABLESPACE dbspace;

Answer 10

On Mac: /Library/PostgreSQL/9.0/data/base
The directory can't be entered, but you can look at the content via: sudo du -hc data

Answer 11

picmate's answer is right. on windows the main DB folder location is (at least on my installation)
C:\PostgreSQL\9.2\data\base\
and not in program files.
his 2 scripts, will give you the exact directory/file(s) you need:
SELECT oid from pg_database WHERE datname = <database_name>;
SELECT relname, relfilenode FROM pg_class WHERE relname = <table_name>;
mine is in datname 16393 and relfilenode 41603

Answer 12

On Windows, the PGDATA directory that the PostgresSQL docs describe is at somewhere like C:\Program Files\PostgreSQL\8.1\data. The data for a particular database is under (for example) C:\Program Files\PostgreSQL\8.1\data\base\100929, where I guess 100929 is the database number.

Answer 13

I'm running postgres (9.5) in a docker container (on CentOS, as it happens), and as Skippy le Grand Gourou mentions in a comment above, the files are located in /var/lib/postgresql/data/.
$ docker exec -it my-postgres-db-container bash
root#c7d61efe2a5d:/# cd /var/lib/postgresql/data/
root#c7d61efe2a5d:/var/lib/postgresql/data# ls -lh
total 56K
drwx------. 7 postgres postgres 71 Apr 5 2018 base
drwx------. 2 postgres postgres 4.0K Nov 2 02:42 global
drwx------. 2 postgres postgres 18 Dec 27 2017 pg_clog
drwx------. 2 postgres postgres 6 Dec 27 2017 pg_commit_ts
drwx------. 2 postgres postgres 6 Dec 27 2017 pg_dynshmem
-rw-------. 1 postgres postgres 4.4K Dec 27 2017 pg_hba.conf
-rw-------. 1 postgres postgres 1.6K Dec 27 2017 pg_ident.conf
drwx------. 4 postgres postgres 39 Dec 27 2017 pg_logical
drwx------. 4 postgres postgres 36 Dec 27 2017 pg_multixact
drwx------. 2 postgres postgres 18 Nov 2 02:42 pg_notify
drwx------. 2 postgres postgres 6 Dec 27 2017 pg_replslot
drwx------. 2 postgres postgres 6 Dec 27 2017 pg_serial
drwx------. 2 postgres postgres 6 Dec 27 2017 pg_snapshots
drwx------. 2 postgres postgres 6 Sep 16 21:15 pg_stat
drwx------. 2 postgres postgres 63 Nov 8 02:41 pg_stat_tmp
drwx------. 2 postgres postgres 18 Oct 24 2018 pg_subtrans
drwx------. 2 postgres postgres 6 Dec 27 2017 pg_tblspc
drwx------. 2 postgres postgres 6 Dec 27 2017 pg_twophase
-rw-------. 1 postgres postgres 4 Dec 27 2017 PG_VERSION
drwx------. 3 postgres postgres 92 Dec 20 2018 pg_xlog
-rw-------. 1 postgres postgres 88 Dec 27 2017 postgresql.auto.conf
-rw-------. 1 postgres postgres 21K Dec 27 2017 postgresql.conf
-rw-------. 1 postgres postgres 37 Nov 2 02:42 postmaster.opts
-rw-------. 1 postgres postgres 85 Nov 2 02:42 postmaster.pid

Answer 14

A single Terminal command: pg_lsclusters, (using Ubuntu)
What you need is under Data directory:
Ver Cluster Port Status Owner Data directory Log file
10 main 5432 online postgres /var/lib/postgresql/10/main /var/log/postgresql/postgresql-10-main.log
11 main 5433 online postgres /var/lib/postgresql/11/main /var/log/postgresql/postgresql-11-main.log