How to Vacuum a Table in Redshift
Last updated July 25, 2026 · By the SaturnSQL team
VACUUM reclaims space from deleted rows and re-sorts rows into sort key order. VACUUM FULL does both, SORT ONLY just sorts, DELETE ONLY just reclaims, and REINDEX rebuilds interleaved sort keys.
VACUUM FULL orders;
VACUUM DELETE ONLY session_logs;
VACUUM SORT ONLY events TO 99 PERCENT;See what needs vacuuming
SELECT "table", unsorted, empty AS deleted_pct
FROM svv_table_info
WHERE unsorted > 10
ORDER BY unsorted DESC;Redshift runs automatic vacuum (delete and sort) in the background during quiet periods, so manual VACUUM is mostly needed after very large deletes or bulk loads into sorted tables. Only one VACUUM can run per cluster at a time.
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