How to Download or Upload the Contents of a PostgreSQL Localhost Database in Windows

In this article, we show how to download or upload the contents of a postgresql localhost database in windows.

We can work with any postgreSQL database by downloading the postgreSQL software on our computer.

We can communicate with any AWS database by having PostgreSQL downloaded on our windows PC.

Once PostgreSQL is downloaded on your Windows PC, then through Command Prompt, we can cd into the bin directory of the PostgreSQL software.

This is shown below.

The bin directory is the directory that contains the functionality needed to run pg_dump, which allows us to download the contents of a PostgreSQL database.

This directory also contains pg_restore, which is needed to upload the contents to a directory.

So how do we download the contents of a PostgreSQL localhost database to our PC?

The gold standard for doing this would be the following code shown below.

pg_dump -h localhost -U username -d database_name -p 5432 -F tar >C:\Desktop\backup.tar

If you want the file to be downloaded as a plain text SQL file, then you would use the following code below.

pg_dump -h localhost -U username -d database_name -p 5432 -F plain >C:\Desktop\awsbackup.sql

If you want the file to be data only, meaning it saves the data of the tables only and not the structure of the tables, we use the following code below.

pg_dump --data-only -h localhost -U username -d database_name -p 5432 -F tar >C:\Desktop\backup.tar

These are proven, tried methods to download the contents of a PostgreSQL localhost database to your computer.

Now let's go over how to upload contents to a PostgreSQL localhost database.

The gold standard for doing this would be the following code shown below.

pg_restore --verbose --clean --no-acl --no-owner -h localhost -U username -d database_name backup.tar

The pg_restore function really only works with the tar file, so even though you can save a file as a plain text SQl file for your own use, when you are uploading it to AWS, you only want to use the tar file.

This is how you can download or upload content to a PostgreSQL localhost database in windows.

Related Resources

How to Create Your Own PostgreSQL Server on Your Own Computer in Windows