Best practice for granting folder read/write permission on Windows
Hi, all,
I don’t use Windows much, but I often help folks who do and are learning
SQL by running PostgreSQL on that OS.
In order to COPY FROM or TO a folder on, say, the Desktop, the user must
first provide permission to PostgreSQL to Read and Write from it. Out of
the box, it cannot as it does not have permission.
Do any of you with PostgreSQL and Windows expertise have a suggestion on a
best practice for this? I have through trial and error found that
navigating to the folder Properties, and then Security, and adding “Users”
to the list of Group or user names solves the issue. I suppose I could find
the specific name of the PostgreSQL service and add it, but that’s a lot of
digging for newbies.
I hope this question is clear. Thanks for any suggestions.
Anthony DeBarros
On Fri, Feb 13, 2026 at 4:15 PM Anthony DeBarros <anthonymdebarros@gmail.com>
wrote:
Hi, all,
I don’t use Windows much, but I often help folks who do and are learning
SQL by running PostgreSQL on that OS.In order to COPY FROM or TO a folder on, say, the Desktop, the user must
first provide permission to PostgreSQL to Read and Write from it. Out of
the box, it cannot as it does not have permission.Do any of you with PostgreSQL and Windows expertise have a suggestion on a
best practice for this? I have through trial and error found that
navigating to the folder Properties, and then Security, and adding “Users”
to the list of Group or user names solves the issue. I suppose I could find
the specific name of the PostgreSQL service and add it, but that’s a lot of
digging for newbies.
I think the standard solution is to use psql and its \copy meta-command.
Since it runs in the client context, no special permissions are required.
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