{"id":43912,"date":"2026-04-14T05:15:44","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T03:15:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/?p=43912"},"modified":"2026-04-14T05:15:46","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T03:15:46","slug":"postgresql-19-the-repack-command","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/postgresql-19-the-repack-command\/","title":{"rendered":"PostgreSQL 19: The “repack” command"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Before PostgreSQL 19 you had two commands to completely rewrite a table: Either you can use the “vacuum full<\/a>” or the “cluster<\/a>” command to achieve this. Both operations are blocking and the table cannot be used until those operations complete. This can easily be verified with the following simple test cases:<\/p>\n\n\n

\n-- session 1\npostgres=# create table t ( a int primary key, b text );\nCREATE TABLE\npostgres=# insert into t select i, md5(i::text) from generate_series(1,10000000) i;\nINSERT 0 1000000\npostgres=# vacuum full t;\n\n-- session 2\npostgres=# select count(*) from t;  -- this blocks until vacuum full completes\n<\/pre><\/div>\n\n\n
The same is true for the “cluster” command:<\/p>\n\n\n
\n-- session 1\npostgres=# \\d t\n                 Table "public.t"\n Column |  Type   | Collation | Nullable | Default \n--------+---------+-----------+----------+---------\n a      | integer |           | not null | \n b      | text    |           |          | \nIndexes:\n    "t_pkey" PRIMARY KEY, btree (a)\n\npostgres=# cluster t using t_pkey;\n\n-- session 2\npostgres=# select count(*) from t;  -- this blocks until clustering completes\n<\/pre><\/div>\n\n\n
Starting with PostgreSQL 19 (scheduled to be released later this year) these two functionalities are combined into the “repack<\/a>” command. The commit message<\/a> makes the reason behind this pretty clear:<\/p>\n\n\n
\nIntroduce the REPACK command\n\nREPACK absorbs the functionality of VACUUM FULL and CLUSTER in a single\ncommand.  Because this functionality is completely different from\nregular VACUUM, having it separate from VACUUM makes it easier for users\nto understand; as for CLUSTER, the term is heavily overloaded in the\nIT world and even in Postgres itself, so it's good that we can avoid it.\n\nWe retain those older commands, but de-emphasize them in the\ndocumentation, in favor of REPACK; the difference between VACUUM FULL\nand CLUSTER (namely, the fact that tuples are written in a specific\nordering) is neatly absorbed as two different modes of REPACK.\n\nThis allows us to introduce further functionality in the future that\nworks regardless of whether an ordering is being applied, such as (and\nespecially) a concurrent mode.\n<\/pre><\/div>\n\n\n
So, instead of spreading the functionality over two commands, there is a new command which combines both:<\/p>\n\n\n
\npostgres=# \\h repack\nCommand:     REPACK\nDescription: rewrite a table to reclaim disk space\nSyntax:\nREPACK [ ( option [, ...] ) ] [ table_and_columns [ USING INDEX [ index_name ] ] ]\nREPACK [ ( option [, ...] ) ] USING INDEX\n\nwhere option can be one of:\n\n    VERBOSE [ boolean ]\n    ANALYZE [ boolean ]\n    CONCURRENTLY [ boolean ]\n\nand table_and_columns is:\n\n    table_name [ ( column_name [, ...] ) ]\n\nURL: https:\/\/www.postgresql.org\/docs\/devel\/sql-repack.html\n<\/pre><\/div>\n\n\n
The really cool stuff about this is, that this can be run concurrently which means the table is not locked for others while the command is doing its work:<\/p>\n\n\n
\n-- session 1\npostgres=# repack (concurrently) t;\n-- or\npostgres=# repack (concurrently) t using index t_pkey;\n\n-- session 2\npostgres=# select count(*) from t;  -- not blocking\n<\/pre><\/div>\n\n\n
Nice, thanks to all involved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Before PostgreSQL 19 you had two commands to completely rewrite a table: Either you can use the “vacuum full” or the “cluster” command to achieve this. Both operations are blocking and the table cannot be used until those operations complete. This can easily be verified with the following simple test cases: The same is true […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[229,198],"tags":[77],"type_dbi":[],"class_list":["post-43912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-database-administration-monitoring","category-database-management","tag-postgresql"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nPostgreSQL 19: The "repack" command - dbi Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/postgresql-19-the-repack-command\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"PostgreSQL 19: The "repack" command\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Before PostgreSQL 19 you had two commands to completely rewrite a table: Either you can use the “vacuum full” or the “cluster” command to achieve this. 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He is a certified AWS Solutions Architect Professional. Prior to dbi services, Daniel was Management System Engineer at LC SYSTEMS-Engineering AG in Basel. Before that, he worked as Oracle Developper &\u00a0Project Manager at Delta Energy Solutions AG in Basel (today Powel AG). Daniel holds a diploma in Business Informatics (DHBW, Germany). 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