- Installation
- Documentation
- Getting Started
- Connect
- Data Import
- Overview
- Data Sources
- CSV Files
- JSON Files
- Overview
- Creating JSON
- Loading JSON
- Writing JSON
- JSON Type
- JSON Functions
- Format Settings
- Installing and Loading
- SQL to / from JSON
- Caveats
- Multiple Files
- Parquet Files
- Partitioning
- Appender
- INSERT Statements
- Client APIs
- Overview
- C
- Overview
- Startup
- Configuration
- Query
- Data Chunks
- Vectors
- Values
- Types
- Prepared Statements
- Appender
- Table Functions
- Replacement Scans
- API Reference
- C++
- CLI
- Dart
- Go
- Java
- Julia
- Node.js (Neo)
- Node.js
- Python
- Overview
- Data Ingestion
- Conversion between DuckDB and Python
- DB API
- Relational API
- Function API
- Types API
- Expression API
- Spark API
- API Reference
- Known Python Issues
- R
- Rust
- Swift
- Wasm
- ADBC
- ODBC
- SQL
- Introduction
- Statements
- Overview
- ANALYZE
- ALTER TABLE
- ALTER VIEW
- ATTACH and DETACH
- CALL
- CHECKPOINT
- COMMENT ON
- COPY
- CREATE INDEX
- CREATE MACRO
- CREATE SCHEMA
- CREATE SECRET
- CREATE SEQUENCE
- CREATE TABLE
- CREATE VIEW
- CREATE TYPE
- DELETE
- DESCRIBE
- DROP
- EXPORT and IMPORT DATABASE
- INSERT
- PIVOT
- Profiling
- SELECT
- SET / RESET
- SET VARIABLE
- SUMMARIZE
- Transaction Management
- UNPIVOT
- UPDATE
- USE
- VACUUM
- LOAD / INSTALL
- Query Syntax
- SELECT
- FROM and JOIN
- WHERE
- GROUP BY
- GROUPING SETS
- HAVING
- ORDER BY
- LIMIT and OFFSET
- SAMPLE
- Unnesting
- WITH
- WINDOW
- QUALIFY
- VALUES
- FILTER
- Set Operations
- Prepared Statements
- Data Types
- Overview
- Array
- Bitstring
- Blob
- Boolean
- Date
- Enum
- Interval
- List
- Literal Types
- Map
- NULL Values
- Numeric
- Struct
- Text
- Time
- Timestamp
- Time Zones
- Union
- Typecasting
- Expressions
- Overview
- CASE Statement
- Casting
- Collations
- Comparisons
- IN Operator
- Logical Operators
- Star Expression
- Subqueries
- Functions
- Overview
- Aggregate Functions
- Array Functions
- Bitstring Functions
- Blob Functions
- Date Format Functions
- Date Functions
- Date Part Functions
- Enum Functions
- Interval Functions
- Lambda Functions
- List Functions
- Map Functions
- Nested Functions
- Numeric Functions
- Pattern Matching
- Regular Expressions
- Struct Functions
- Text Functions
- Time Functions
- Timestamp Functions
- Timestamp with Time Zone Functions
- Union Functions
- Utility Functions
- Window Functions
- Constraints
- Indexes
- Meta Queries
- DuckDB's SQL Dialect
- Samples
- Configuration
- Extensions
- Overview
- Core Extensions
- Community Extensions
- Working with Extensions
- Versioning of Extensions
- Arrow
- AutoComplete
- AWS
- Azure
- Delta
- Excel
- Full Text Search
- httpfs (HTTP and S3)
- Iceberg
- ICU
- inet
- jemalloc
- MySQL
- PostgreSQL
- Spatial
- SQLite
- Substrait
- TPC-DS
- TPC-H
- VSS
- Guides
- Overview
- Data Viewers
- Database Integration
- File Formats
- Overview
- CSV Import
- CSV Export
- Directly Reading Files
- Excel Import
- Excel Export
- JSON Import
- JSON Export
- Parquet Import
- Parquet Export
- Querying Parquet Files
- Network and Cloud Storage
- Overview
- HTTP Parquet Import
- S3 Parquet Import
- S3 Parquet Export
- S3 Iceberg Import
- S3 Express One
- GCS Import
- Cloudflare R2 Import
- DuckDB over HTTPS / S3
- Meta Queries
- Describe Table
- EXPLAIN: Inspect Query Plans
- EXPLAIN ANALYZE: Profile Queries
- List Tables
- Summarize
- DuckDB Environment
- ODBC
- Performance
- Overview
- Environment
- Import
- Schema
- Indexing
- Join Operations
- File Formats
- How to Tune Workloads
- My Workload Is Slow
- Benchmarks
- Python
- Installation
- Executing SQL
- Jupyter Notebooks
- SQL on Pandas
- Import from Pandas
- Export to Pandas
- Import from Numpy
- Export to Numpy
- SQL on Arrow
- Import from Arrow
- Export to Arrow
- Relational API on Pandas
- Multiple Python Threads
- Integration with Ibis
- Integration with Polars
- Using fsspec Filesystems
- SQL Editors
- SQL Features
- Snippets
- Glossary of Terms
- Browse Offline
- Operations Manual
- Overview
- Limits
- Non-Deterministic Behavior
- Embedding DuckDB
- DuckDB's Footprint
- Securing DuckDB
- Development
- DuckDB Repositories
- Testing
- Overview
- sqllogictest Introduction
- Writing Tests
- Debugging
- Result Verification
- Persistent Testing
- Loops
- Multiple Connections
- Catch
- Profiling
- Release Calendar
- Building
- Benchmark Suite
- Internals
- Sitemap
- Why DuckDB
- Media
- FAQ
- Code of Conduct
- Live Demo
The CHECKPOINT
statement synchronizes data in the write-ahead log (WAL) to the database data file. For in-memory
databases this statement will succeed with no effect.
Examples
Synchronize data in the default database:
CHECKPOINT;
Synchronize data in the specified database:
CHECKPOINT file_db;
Abort any in-progress transactions to synchronize the data:
FORCE CHECKPOINT;
Syntax
Checkpoint operations happen automatically based on the WAL size (see Configuration). This statement is for manual checkpoint actions.
Behavior
The default CHECKPOINT
command will fail if there are any running transactions. Including FORCE
will abort any
transactions and execute the checkpoint operation.
Also see the related PRAGMA
option for further behavior modification.
Reclaiming Space
When performing a checkpoint (automatic or otherwise), the space occupied by deleted rows is partially reclaimed. Note that this does not remove all deleted rows, but rather merges row groups that have a significant amount of deletes together. In the current implementation this requires ~25% of rows to be deleted in adjacent row groups.
When running in in-memory mode, checkpointing has no effect, hence it does not reclaim space after deletes in in-memory databases.
Warning The
VACUUM
statement does not trigger vacuuming deletes and hence does not reclaim space.