This is the view that you need to check:
select n_live_tup, n_dead_tup, relname from pg_stat_all_tables;
Answer from Frank N Stein on Stack OverflowDEV Community
dev.to โบ sandeepkumardev โบ how-to-handle-dead-tuples-in-postgresql-54m1
Dead Tuples in PostgreSQL. - DEV Community
September 4, 2022 - If a table have some unique constraint and a user trying to Insert the same data again, PostgreSQL will return an error > Uniqueness violation. duplicate key value violates unique constraint. We can avoid this by using ON CONFLICT DO NOTHING clause. INSERT INTO users VALUES ('name', 'email@gmail.com') ON CONFLICT DO NOTHING; It'll return INSERT 0 0 indicates that nothing was inserted in the table, the query didn't error out. In the case of ON CONFLICT DO NOTHING no dead tuples are generated because of the pre-check.
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This is the view that you need to check:
select n_live_tup, n_dead_tup, relname from pg_stat_all_tables;
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You can use the extension pgstattuple. It will report dead_tuple_len.
Custom Alert - Dead tuples percentage - pg_stat_user_tables
Description In PostgreSQL, an UPDATE or DELETE of a row does not immediately remove the old version of the row. This approach is necessary to gain the benefits of multi-version concurrency control (MVCC) - the row version must not be deleted while it is still potentially visible to other ... More on thwack.solarwinds.com
sql - How to find dead tuples (fragmentation) in PostgreSQL 8.2 ( for Greenplum)? - Stack Overflow
I know, how to find dead tuples in the new version of PostgreSQL. I have already shared two article on this. PostgreSQL: How to check Table Fragmentation using pgstattuple module More on stackoverflow.com
postgresql - POSTGRES: How do I understand the real number of dead tuples in a given table - Stack Overflow
I have a database transactions: Table "public.transaction" Column | Type | Collation | Nullable | ... More on stackoverflow.com
How many rows can fit in a Postgres table?
A page is an 8K block of memory. 4,294,967,295 pages ~= 32 terabytes. According to that statement, a table can be up to 32 terabytes in size. So it depends on how big your rows are. I assume that that number also includes unvacuumed dead tuples, since they also take up space on those pages. So it also depends how well vacuumed it is. In the worst case you would run out of space with 0 rows. But okay what's the best case? Say you have no dead tuples and all of your rows are just boolean (which are 1 byte). This isn't a very useful table but we're just seeing how many rows we can fit. Each page is 8192 bytes. 24 bytes go to the page header. Each row has a 23 byte header. The boolean data is 1 byte, so 24 bytes per row. (8192 - 24) / 24 = 340.3. So you could fit 340 1-byte tuples, max, in a page. 340 rows per page * 4294967295 pages= 1,460,288,880,300 rows. A bit less than 1.5 trillion rows. More on reddit.com
Codecademy
codecademy.com โบ learn โบ fscp-22-advanced-postgresql โบ modules โบ wdcp-22-database-maintenence โบ cheatsheet
Advanced PostgreSQL: Database Maintenence Cheatsheet | Codecademy
Dead tuples are not referenced ... displayed to the DB user: You can check the number of dead tuples with the internal PostgreSQL statistic tables....
Substack
skylinecodes.substack.com โบ postgresql dead tuples: mvcc, autovacuum, and database bloat
PostgreSQL Dead Tuples: MVCC, Autovacuum, and Database Bloat
May 3, 2025 - This returns the total table size, number of live vs. dead tuples, and bytes wasted on dead tuples. Seeing a high dead_tuple_count or large dead_tuple_len percentage is a red flag. You can also inspect the autovacuum log activity. In postgresql.conf, set for example: log_autovacuum_min_duration = 0 # log all autovacuum runs ยท Then check the logs: each autovacuum report will include how many tuples were removed from each tableโ. Together, these tools let you track which tables are building up dead tuples and whether autovacuum is keeping up.
Medium
medium.com โบ @nakulmitra2114 โบ postgresql-performance-optimization-cleaning-dead-tuples-reindexing-9b1346408b97
PostgreSQL Performance Optimization โ Cleaning Dead Tuples & Reindexing | by Nakul Mitra | Towards Dev
March 8, 2026 - PostgreSQL must scan through dead tuples to fetch valid data. Indexes grow larger, making queries slower. Tables and indexes become bloated, increasing storage requirements. We can check for dead tuples using the pg_stat_user_tables view:
PostgreSQL
postgresql.org โบ docs โบ 9.6 โบ pgstattuple.html
PostgreSQL: Documentation: 9.6: pgstattuple
August 12, 2021 - Whereas pgstattuple always performs a full-table scan and returns an exact count of live and dead tuples (and their sizes) and free space, pgstattuple_approx tries to avoid the full-table scan and returns exact dead tuple statistics along with ...
Medium
firattamur.medium.com โบ dead-tuples-in-focus-enhancing-postgresql-performance-94ebbd4b96c9
Dead Tuples In Focus โ Vol I: Enhancing PostgreSQL Performance ๐ | by firattamur | Medium
January 14, 2024 - Now, we can check the table using the following command: postgres=# \dt List of relations Schema | Name | Type | Owner --------+-------+-------+-------- public | users | table | postgres (1 row) In the intriguing universe of PostgreSQL, โdead tuplesโ are a topic that often captivates database aficionados.
Medium
firattamur.medium.com โบ dead-tuples-in-focus-vol-ii-enhancing-postgresql-performance-ce7d84f76082
Dead Tuples In Focus โ Vol II: Enhancing PostgreSQL Performance ๐ | by firattamur | Medium
January 14, 2024 - Following the similar steps outlined above, once we verify the count of dead tuples, we can proceed to run VACUUM FULL this time. VACUUM does shrink your database size! If you check dead tuples count again, you will see that it is 0 now. postgres=# SELECT relname, n_dead_tup FROM pg_stat_user_tables WHERE relname = 'users'; relname | n_dead_tup ---------+------------ users | 0 (1 row)
SolarWinds
thwack.solarwinds.com โบ home โบ products โบ database performance analyzer (dpa)
Custom Alert - Dead tuples percentage - pg_stat_user_tables - THWACK
August 3, 2020 - Description In PostgreSQL, an UPDATE or DELETE of a row does not immediately remove the old version of the row. This approach is necessary to gain the benefits of multi-version concurrency control (MVCC) - the row version must not be deleted while it is still potentially visible to other transactions.
Dbrnd
dbrnd.com โบ 2016 โบ 10 โบ postgresql-script-to-find-total-live-tuples-and-dead-tuples-row-of-a-table-execute-vacuum-remove-fragmentation-improve-performance
PostgreSQL: Script to find total Live Tuples and Dead Tuples (Row) of a Table
October 4, 2016 - Periodically, We should find dead rows of the object and we should remove it using VACUUM techniques of PostgreSQL. By this way, we can increase the overall performance of PostgreSQL Database Server. PostgreSQL: Short note on VACUUM, VACUUM FULL and ANALYZE ยท Find out Live Tuples or Dead Tuples using two different scripts.
Fujitsu PostgreSQL
postgresql.fastware.com โบ pzone โบ 2025-03-improving-postgresql-efficiency-by-handling-dead-tuples
Improving PostgreSQL efficiency by handling dead tuples
December 30, 2025 - Automatic statistics collection: PostgreSQL automatically collects statistics but running ANALYZE manually can be beneficial after significant data changes. ... Adjust thresholds: Modify the autovacuum_vacuum_threshold and autovacuum_vacuum_scale_factor parameters to trigger VACUUM operations more frequently. This helps in keeping dead tuple accumulation in check...
Wordpress
dbasid.wordpress.com โบ find-the-live-and-dead-tuple
Find the Live and Dead Tuple
April 19, 2018 - By this way, we can increase the ... to check the fragmentation level of Table.PostgreSQL provides pgstattuple module to get all tuples information of a Table....
CYBERTEC PostgreSQL
cybertec-postgresql.com โบ home โบ killed index tuples
Killed index tuples | a little known performance feature
March 5, 2024 - CPU: user: 0.00 s, system: 0.00 s, elapsed: 0.00 s. INFO: "pg_toast_16867": found 0 removable, 0 nonremovable row versions in 0 out of 0 pages DETAIL: 0 dead row versions cannot be removed yet, oldest xmin: 714 There were 0 unused item pointers. Skipped 0 pages due to buffer pins, 0 frozen pages. 0 pages are entirely empty. CPU: user: 0.00 s, system: 0.00 s, elapsed: 0.00 s. ... Those killed entries are considered live on a standby, potentially leading to weird performance differences between primary and standby clusters on particular select queries (https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/flat/7067.1529246768@sss.pgh.pa.us#d9e2e570ba34fc96c4300a362cbe8c38)
DEV Community
dev.to โบ aws-heroes โบ dead-tuple-space-reused-without-vacuum-10fd
Postgres dead tuple space reused without vacuum - DEV Community
March 22, 2024 - This subtle change is visible in the dead column of the B-Tree leaf block which has been set to true by the previous read when it has found the dead tuple, so that the next reads don't have to do the same. postgres=# select substr(data,1,42), itemoffset, htid, itemlen, nulls, vars, dead from bt_page_items(get_raw_page('demo_pkey', 1)) order by data ; substr | itemoffset | htid | itemlen | nulls | vars | dead --------------------------------------------+------------+--------+---------+-------+------+------ 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 e0 07 00 00 78 78 | 2 | (0,1) | 520 | f | t | f 01 00 00 00 00 00