---
title: Reset Auto-Increment IDs in Postgres
date: 2021-04-18
tags: Data, Postgres
source: https://brianchildress.co/blog/reset-auto-increment-in-postgres
---

# Reset Auto-Increment IDs in Postgres

If you've ever needed to "reset" the auto-incrementing row ID in a Postgres database here is a simple command to start fresh (this should work for any SQL based DB really). Typically during the development life cycle I want to generate new dummy data for testing purposes. Sometimes that data is in a table with an auto-incrementing ID and I use the `TRUNCATE` command to remove all data and reset the auto-increment value to 0 for a given table.

**WARNING** The `TRUNCATE` command will delete _ALL_ data!!!

```sql
TRUNCATE <table name> RESTART IDENTITY;
```

If the `TRUNCATE` command is a little too intense, i.e. you want to keep some data, you can also consider the `ALTER SEQUENCE` command to set the auto-incrementing ID column to a specified value. The sequence for a column is not just the column name, but is formatted like `<table name>_<column name>_seq`. For example:

```sql
ALTER SEQUENCE <table name>_<column name>_seq RESTART WITH <reset id>;
```

_Example Use:_ 

Table: _Product_
Column: _id_

```sql
ALTER SEQUENCE product_id_seq RESTART WITH 1000;
```