How do I copy a CSV file into a Postgres Table?

Issue

You want to copy a .csv file from your local machine to a Heroku Postgres table.

Resolution

Run heroku pg:psql -a <application_name>.

Once the Postgres shell opens, run

DATABASE=> \copy table_name FROM csv_file.csv WITH (FORMAT CSV);

If an upload data is large, we'd recommend the following:

• Attempt to run the \copy the data in smaller batches
• If it's a private tier plan, attempt to run the \copy from a (one-off) dyno to avoid the extra overhead/latency to connect to the database server