How to Show Databases in MySQL

The list is filtered by privileges, so a user without access to a database simply does not see it. That is a common source of confusion when the same query works for one account and not another. System databases (information_schema, mysql, performance_schema, sys) appear alongside your own.

SHOW DATABASES;
SHOW DATABASES LIKE 'shop%';

With charset and collation

information_schema.schemata is the same list in queryable form, with the charset and collation each new table in that database will inherit. Worth checking before creating tables, since a database still on utf8mb3 produces tables that cannot store four-byte characters such as emoji.

SELECT schema_name, default_character_set_name, default_collation_name
FROM information_schema.schemata
ORDER BY schema_name;