Convert pgAdmin backup to T-SQL

Upload a .backup or .dump file and get back a T-SQL SQL script you can load straight into your database. Types are preserved rather than flattened to text. Free, no registration, up to 10MB.

Click to upload or drag and drop

CSV, Excel, SQLite, SQL, DBF (max 10 MB)

How your data is typed in T-SQL

Generated from the converter's own T-SQL type mapping — this is what it actually emits, not an example.

Your dataT-SQL type
Whole numberBIGINT
Decimal (money)DECIMAL(10,2)
Floating pointFLOAT
True / falseBIT
DateDATE
Date and timeDATETIME2
Short textNVARCHAR(255)
Long textNVARCHAR(MAX)
Binary dataVARBINARY(MAX)

Working from a pgAdmin backup

pgAdmin's Backup dialog is a front end to pg_dump, so what you end up with depends on which format you picked in it - and the default is not plain SQL, which surprises people expecting a file they can read.

  • In pgAdmin's server and container modes the backup is written on the machine running pgAdmin rather than on yours, under that installation's storage directory for your login. Fetch it with pgAdmin's own file manager before you can upload it anywhere.
  • If the dialog refused to produce a file at all and complained that a utility was not found, that is its Binary Path preference pointing at no pg_dump. It is a pgAdmin setting, not a problem with your database.
  • The dialog's "Do not save Owner" and "Do not save Privileges" toggles make no difference to the result: those statements are stripped when the archive is unpacked, whichever way you set them.

The T-SQL the script actually uses

T-SQL is the language rather than the product, and it is exactly where a generic ANSI SQL script fails against SQL Server. Two of those differences are why this target has a dialect of its own instead of reusing the shared one.

  • Date and timestamp values are written as ordinary quoted strings. The ANSI typed literal - the word DATE in front of a quoted date - is not T-SQL, and the server rejects it, which on its own is enough to make a portable script fail to load.
  • GO is not a statement in the language at all. sqlcmd, SSMS and Azure Data Studio read it as a batch separator and the server never sees it, so a driver handed the whole file as one string chokes on it: run the file through one of those clients, or split the text on its GO lines and send the pieces in order down the same connection.
  • Rows are written 500 to a statement, comfortably under the 1000-row ceiling T-SQL puts on a single VALUES list. That ceiling is what makes a script built around one statement per table fail on any table worth converting.

Reading pgAdmin backup

  • Reads pg_dump custom-format archives (.backup, .dump) — pgAdmin's default backup option — as well as plain SQL dumps.
  • Data written as COPY blocks is read, not just INSERT statements. COPY is pg_dump's default, so a reader that only understands INSERT returns your tables with none of their rows.
  • Primary keys declared by a later ALTER TABLE, which is how pg_dump writes them, are preserved.

Writing T-SQL

  • String literals carry the N prefix, so non-ASCII text survives whatever collation the database uses.
  • Timestamps become DATETIME2. T-SQL’s TIMESTAMP is a row-version counter, not a point in time.
  • Identity columns are wrapped in SET IDENTITY_INSERT so explicit key values load.
  • Statements are separated with GO in batches.

What you get

A ZIP containing dump.sql, plus a README with the exact command to load it. If anything about your data needed a judgement call, a _warnings.txt explains it.

Load this dump into SQL Server:

  sqlcmd -S HOST -U USER -P PASSWORD -d DATABASE -i dump.sql

Notes:

  - Text columns are NVARCHAR and literals carry the N prefix, so
    non-ASCII data survives regardless of database collation.
  - Timestamps are DATETIME2. T-SQL's TIMESTAMP type is a row
    version, not a point in time.

Questions

Is converting pgAdmin backup to T-SQL free?
Yes. Files up to 10MB convert free with no account. There is a limit of five conversions per day per IP address.
Will my pgAdmin backup data keep its types in T-SQL?
Yes — that is the point. Whole numbers, decimals, dates and booleans are mapped to real T-SQL types rather than everything becoming text. The mapping table above shows exactly what you get.
Do you store my file?
No. The file is written to a temporary directory, converted, and the directory is deleted as soon as your download has been sent.

This conversion, under other names

Convert pgAdmin backup to something else

Convert something else to T-SQL