The guides section contains compact how-to guides that are focused on achieving a single goal. For API references and examples, see the rest of the documentation.
Note that there are many tools using DuckDB, which are not covered in the official guides. To find a list of these tools, check out the Awesome DuckDB repository.
Tip For a short introductory tutorial, check out the “Analyzing Railway Traffic in the Netherlands” tutorial.
Data Import and Export
CSV Files
Parquet Files
- How to load a Parquet file into a table
- How to export a table to a Parquet file
- How to run a query directly on a Parquet file
HTTP(S), S3 and GCP
- How to load a Parquet file directly from HTTP(S)
- How to load a Parquet file directly from S3
- How to export a Parquet file to S3
- How to load a Parquet file from S3 Express One
- How to load a Parquet file directly from GCS
- How to load a Parquet file directly from Cloudflare R2
- How to load an Iceberg table directly from S3
JSON Files
Excel Files with the Spatial Extension
Querying Other Database Systems
- How to directly query a MySQL database
- How to directly query a PostgreSQL database
- How to directly query a SQLite database
Directly Reading Files
Performance
- My workload is slow (troubleshooting guide)
- How to design the schema for optimal performance
- What is the ideal hardware environment for DuckDB
- What performance implications do Parquet files and (compressed) CSV files have
- How to tune workloads
- Benchmarks
Meta Queries
- How to list all tables
- How to view the schema of the result of a query
- How to quickly get a feel for a dataset using summarize
- How to view the query plan of a query
- How to profile a query
ODBC
Python Client
- How to install the Python client
- How to execute SQL queries
- How to easily query DuckDB in Jupyter Notebooks
- How to easily query DuckDB in marimo Notebooks
- How to use Multiple Python Threads with DuckDB
- How to use fsspec filesystems with DuckDB
Pandas
- How to execute SQL on a Pandas DataFrame
- How to create a table from a Pandas DataFrame
- How to export data to a Pandas DataFrame
Apache Arrow
- How to execute SQL on Apache Arrow
- How to create a DuckDB table from Apache Arrow
- How to export data to Apache Arrow
Relational API
Python Library Integrations
- How to use Ibis to query DuckDB with or without SQL
- How to use DuckDB with Polars DataFrames via Apache Arrow
SQL Features
SQL Editors and IDEs
Data Viewers
- How to visualize DuckDB databases with Tableau
- How to draw command-line plots with DuckDB and YouPlot
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