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1.0 (stable)
Files Created by DuckDB

DuckDB creates several files and directories on disk. This page lists both the global and the local ones.

Global Files and Directories

DuckDB creates the following global files and directories in the user's home directory (denoted with ~):

Location Description Shared between versions Shared between clients
~/.duckdbrc The content of this file is executed when starting the DuckDB CLI client. The commands can be both dot command and SQL statements. The naming of this file follows the ~/.bashrc and ~/.zshrc “run commands” files. Yes Only used by CLI
~/.duckdb_history History file, similar to ~/.bash_history and ~/.zsh_history. Used by the DuckDB CLI client. Yes Only used by CLI
~/.duckdb/extensions Binaries of installed extensions. No Yes
~/.duckdb/stored_secrets Persistent secrets created by the Secrets manager. Yes Yes

Local Files and Directories

DuckDB creates the following files and directories in the working directory (for in-memory connections) or relative to the database file (for persistent connections):

Name Description Example
⟨database_filename⟩ Database file. Only created in on-disk mode. The file can have any extension with typical extensions being .duckdb, .db, and .ddb. weather.duckdb
.tmp/ Temporary directory. Only created in in-memory mode. .tmp/
⟨database_filename⟩.tmp/ Temporary directory. Only created in on-disk mode. weather.tmp/
⟨database_filename⟩.wal Write-ahead log file. If DuckDB exits normally, the WAL file is deleted upon exit. If DuckDB crashes, the WAL file is required to recover data. weather.wal

If you are working in a Git repository and would like to disable tracking these files by Git, see the instructions on using .gitignore for DuckDB.

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