vacuumdb — garbage-collect and analyze a PostgreSQL database
vacuumdb [connection-option...] [option...]  
    [
       -t  |   --table  
     table
      [( column [,...] )]
    ]
   ...  [dbname]
vacuumdb [connection-option...] [option...]   -a  |   --all  
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.
vacuumdb accepts the following command-line arguments:
-a--allVacuum 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-skippingDisable skipping pages based on the contents of the visibility map.
This option is only available for servers running PostgreSQL 9.6 and later.
-e--echoEcho the commands that vacuumdb generates and sends to the server.
-f--fullPerform “full” vacuuming.
-F--freezeAggressively “freeze” tuples.
-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 24.1.5.1).
       
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.
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 24.1.5).
       
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.
This option is only available for servers running PostgreSQL 9.6 and later.
-P parallel_workers--parallel=parallel_workersSpecify the number of parallel workers for parallel vacuum. This allows the vacuum to leverage multiple CPUs to process indexes. See VACUUM.
This option is only available for servers running PostgreSQL 13 and later.
-q--quietDo not display progress messages.
--skip-lockedSkip relations that cannot be immediately locked for processing.
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.
       
If you specify columns, you probably have to escape the parentheses from the shell. (See examples below.)
-v--verbosePrint detailed information during processing.
-V--versionPrint the vacuumdb version and exit.
-z--analyzeAlso calculate statistics for use by the optimizer.
-Z--analyze-onlyOnly 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.
       
-?--helpShow help about vacuumdb command line arguments, and exit.
vacuumdb also accepts the following command-line arguments for connection parameters:
-h host--host=hostSpecifies 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=portSpecifies the TCP port or local Unix domain socket file extension on which the server is listening for connections.
-U username--username=usernameUser 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--passwordForce 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.
       
PGDATABASEPGHOSTPGPORTPGUSERDefault 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 33.14).
In case of difficulty, see VACUUM and psql 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.
   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 33.15 for more information.
  
    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