MySQL Drop Database

Last Updated: 28 May, 2023

The DROP DATABASE statement is used to drop an existing database from MySQL.

Deleting a database means all the tables, indexes, views etc. related to the database will deleted.

See the syntax and example below.

Syntax:

DROP DATABASE database_name;

Example:

DROP DATABASE schoolDB;

Drop a database with IF EXISTS option

We can use the IF EXISTS option with the DROP DATABASE statement in MySQL to prevent an error from being thrown if the database we are trying to drop doesn't exist.

Syntax:

DROP DATABASE IF EXISTS database_name;

Example:

DROP DATABASE IF EXISTS schoolDB;

• Before deleting a database we must make sure we have a privilege as well as the database which we want to delete that should be exist.
• It's recommended that we always keep a backup of our databases, so if we delete a database by mistake or lose a database for some reason, we can recover from the backup.