Where does PostgreSQL store the database?

Question

Where are the files for a PostgreSQL database stored?

Answer 1

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 2

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 3

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 4

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 5

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 6

Under my Linux installation, it's here: /var/lib/postgresql/8.x/

You can change it with initdb -D "c:/mydb/"