SQL Formatter & Beautifier

How to format SQL

1. Paste your query into the SQL input box, or press Upload .sql to open a file.
2. Choose the Dialect it's written for (MySQL, PostgreSQL, T-SQL, SQLite, BigQuery, Snowflake, Oracle PL/SQL and more), and it is formatted as you type.
3. Set Keyword case (upper, lower or preserve), Indent (2 spaces, 4 spaces or a tab) and Lines between queries to taste.
4. Press Minify to collapse the result onto a single line instead.
5. Press Copy or Download .sql to take the result with you. Ctrl+Enter (Cmd+Enter on a Mac) re-runs the last action.

SQL pretty print example

A one-line query is hard to review in a pull request or a log:

select u.id, u.name, count(o.id) as orders from users u left join orders o on o.user_id=u.id where u.active=1 group by u.id, u.name order by orders desc limit 10;

Formatted with upper-case keywords and 2-space indentation, each clause gets its own line and the joined table and grouped columns are easy to scan:

SELECT
  u.id,
  u.name,
  count(o.id) AS orders
FROM
  users u
  LEFT JOIN orders o ON o.user_id = u.id
WHERE
  u.active = 1
GROUP BY
  u.id,
  u.name
ORDER BY
  orders DESC
LIMIT
  10;

SQL minify: back to a single line

Minify does the reverse — useful for a log line, a URL parameter, or anywhere a multi-line string is awkward. The formatted example above collapses to:

select u.id, u.name, count(o.id) as orders from users u left join orders o on o.user_id = u.id where u.active = 1 group by u.id, u.name order by orders desc limit 10;

Minify formats first (so the query is tokenized correctly for the dialect you picked) and only then joins lines with a single space, so the result still means exactly the same query.

Dialect quirks: backticks, brackets, $1 and :named parameters

SQL dialects don't agree on how identifiers and parameters are written, so picking the right dialect matters. A few examples, all reformatted without disturbing the dialect-specific syntax:

MySQL / MariaDB use backtick-quoted identifiers:

select `id`, `name` from `users` where `id` = 1

SELECT
  `id`,
  `name`
FROM
  `users`
WHERE
  `id` = 1

T-SQL (SQL Server) uses [bracket]-quoted identifiers, and TOP instead of LIMIT:

select top 10 [Id], [Name] from [dbo].[Users] where [Active] = 1

SELECT
  TOP 10 [Id],
  [Name]
FROM
  [dbo].[Users]
WHERE
  [Active] = 1

PostgreSQL often uses $1, $2 positional parameters from application code:

select * from users where id = $1 and email = $2

SELECT
  *
FROM
  users
WHERE
  id = $1
  AND email = $2

SQLite (and many ORMs) support :name named parameters:

select * from users where id = :id

SELECT
  *
FROM
  users
WHERE
  id = :id

Comments and multiple statements are kept

Both -- line comments and /* block comments */ survive formatting exactly as written, wherever they appear:

select id,
  name -- customer name
from customers /* active only */
where active = 1;

SELECT
  id,
  name -- customer name
FROM
  customers /* active only */
WHERE
  active = 1;

A file with several semicolon-separated statements is formatted statement by statement; Lines between queries controls how many blank lines separate them.

What is the best SQL formatter?

For everyday reformatting of a query someone pasted into a ticket or a Slack message, a dialect-aware browser tool that never uploads the text — like this one — is the fastest, lowest-risk option. If you format SQL constantly inside a specific database's IDE (DataGrip, DBeaver, Azure Data Studio, SSMS), that IDE's built-in formatter is worth learning too, since it runs on every file automatically and can understand your actual schema. Neither replaces reading the query.

SQL formatter vs beautifier vs minifier

• SQL formatter or beautifier: adds line breaks, indentation and consistent keyword case so a query is easy to read and review. This tool's Format button.
• SQL minifier: the reverse — collapses a query onto one line. This tool's Minify button.
• Neither one is a query optimizer or a linter: formatting never changes which rows a query returns or how fast it runs, and this tool doesn't flag anti-patterns like SELECT * or a missing index.

Is my SQL query safe to paste here?

Formatting and minifying both run entirely in your browser's JavaScript; the query text never leaves your device, and there's no database connection for it to reach even if it wanted to. That matters more for SQL than for most text, because a real query can carry production table names, column names, or literal values a colleague pasted in while debugging. Only your settings — dialect, keyword case, indent size, lines between queries — are saved, in your browser's local storage, never the query itself.

More developer tools

• JSON formatter & validator: format, minify and validate the JSON your queries return.
• XML formatter & validator: the same pretty print and minify workflow for XML.
• HTML formatter & beautifier: pretty print and minify HTML templates.
• Diff checker: compare two versions of a query or migration side by side.

Frequently asked questions