How can I attach a database to an app in Heroku?

Question

I\'m using Heroku\'s Postgres addon, and I created a new production database from the Heroku Postgres addon page. I Didn\'t add it directly to my App using the Resources page of

Answer 1

To get your database that you created at https://postgres.heroku.com/ attached to your actual heroku app that you are working on you can't use any of the pg backup commands and as far as I can tell there is no supported Heroku way of attaching a database to a heroku app.

You can however create a backup of your database using pg_dump and then use pg_restore to populate your new database that is attached to your app:

pg_dump -i -h hostname -p 5432 -U username -F c -b -v -f "backup-filename" database_name

Once that is complete you can populate your new database with:

pg_restore -i -h new_hostname -p 5432 -U new_username -d new_database_name -v "same_backup_filename"

Even if you are upgrading from the "basic plan" to a the "crane plan" you still have to do a backup and restore, but since the db's are already attached to your app you have the advantage of using the heroku backup commands.