---
title: Reorder Columns in Postgres
description: Sometimes you need to reorder columns in your database to align with other data models, to show relevant data first, to satisfy your O.C.D (✋ that's me).
date: 2021-04-27
tags: postgres
source: https://brianchildress.co/blog/reorder-columns-postgres
---

# Reorder Columns in Postgres

Sometimes you need to reorder columns in your database to align with other data models, to show relevant data first, to satisfy your O.C.D (✋ that's me). If you're using PostgreSQL for your relational database (really any SQL database) and you already have data in your database, here are steps you can take to reorder columns in a given table.

**Step 1.** Convert table to a temp table

Because we want to maintain our table names and preserve data we will first convert our table to a temporary table, this will allow us to create a new table with our existing table name.

```sql
ALTER TABLE <table name> RENAME TO <temp table name>;
```

_Example Use:_

```sql
ALTER TABLE users RENAME TO temp_users;
```

**Step 2.** Create a "new" Table

We need to create a "new" table with the correct column ordering, etc. this is our opportunity to create the table with the structure we want.

```sql
CREATE TABLE users
(
  first_name text,
  last_name text
  created_at timestamp,
  updated_at timestamp
  ...
)
```

**Step 3.** Copy data from temp table into "new" table

With our "new" table with the correctly ordered columns we need to copy data from the temp table (our original table).

```sql
INSERT INTO users (first_name, last_name, created_at, updated_at, ...) SELECT first_name, last_name, created_at, updated_at FROM temp_users;
```