sqlite-utils

Python CLI utility and library for manipulating SQLite databases.

Some feature highlights

Pipe JSON (or CSV or TSV) directly into a new SQLite database file, automatically creating a table with the appropriate schema
Run in-memory SQL queries, including joins, directly against data in CSV, TSV or JSON files and view the results
Configure SQLite full-text search against your database tables and run search queries against them, ordered by relevance
Run transformations against your tables to make schema changes that SQLite ALTER TABLE does not directly support, such as changing the type of a column
Extract columns into separate tables to better normalize your existing data
Manage database migrations using Python migration files and the sqlite-utils migrate command
Install plugins to add custom SQL functions and additional features

Upgrading from sqlite-utils 3.x? See the 4.0 upgrade guide.

Read more on my blog, in this series of posts on New features in sqlite-utils and other entries tagged sqlite-utils.

Installation

pip install sqlite-utils

Or if you use Homebrew for macOS:

brew install sqlite-utils

Using as a CLI tool

Now you can do things with the CLI utility like this:

$ sqlite-utils memory dogs.csv "select * from t"
[{"id": 1, "age": 4, "name": "Cleo"},
 {"id": 2, "age": 2, "name": "Pancakes"}]

$ sqlite-utils insert dogs.db dogs dogs.csv --csv
[####################################]  100%

$ sqlite-utils tables dogs.db --counts
[{"table": "dogs", "count": 2}]

$ sqlite-utils dogs.db "select id, name from dogs"
[{"id": 1, "name": "Cleo"},
 {"id": 2, "name": "Pancakes"}]

$ sqlite-utils dogs.db "select * from dogs" --csv
id,age,name
1,4,Cleo
2,2,Pancakes

$ sqlite-utils dogs.db "select * from dogs" --table
  id    age  name
----  -----  --------
   1      4  Cleo
   2      2  Pancakes

You can import JSON data into a new database table like this:

$ curl https://api.github.com/repos/simonw/sqlite-utils/releases \
    | sqlite-utils insert releases.db releases - --pk id

Or for data in a CSV file:

$ sqlite-utils insert dogs.db dogs dogs.csv --csv

sqlite-utils memory lets you import CSV or JSON data into an in-memory database and run SQL queries against it in a single command:

$ cat dogs.csv | sqlite-utils memory - "select name, age from stdin"

See the full CLI documentation for comprehensive coverage of many more commands.

Using as a library

You can also import sqlite_utils and use it as a Python library like this:

import sqlite_utils
db = sqlite_utils.Database("demo_database.db")
# This line creates a "dogs" table if one does not already exist:
db["dogs"].insert_all([
    {"id": 1, "age": 4, "name": "Cleo"},
    {"id": 2, "age": 2, "name": "Pancakes"}
], pk="id")

Check out the full library documentation for everything else you can do with the Python library.

Related projects

Datasette: A tool for exploring and publishing data
csvs-to-sqlite: Convert CSV files into a SQLite database
db-to-sqlite: CLI tool for exporting a MySQL or PostgreSQL database as a SQLite file
dogsheep: A family of tools for personal analytics, built on top of sqlite-utils

Metadata

Release files for sqlite-utils 4.2.1

For a detailed explanation of source distributions (sdists) and built distributions (wheels), please see the package formats documentation.

Source distribution (sdist)

Source distribution for sqlite-utils 4.2.1
File	Size	Uploaded
sqlite_utils-4.2.1.tar.gz	311.7 kB	Aug 13, 2026	Details

Built distribution (wheel)

Table of built distributions (wheels) for sqlite-utils 4.2.1
File	Interpreter	ABI	Platform	Reset
sqlite_utils-4.2.1-py3-none-any.whl 99.5 kB Aug 13, 2026	Python 3	none	any	Details

Total release size: 411.2 kB

Release files / sqlite_utils-4.2.1.tar.gz

Download URL	sqlite_utils-4.2.1.tar.gz
Size	311.7 kB
Tags	Source
SHA-256 checksum How to use checksums	`76114b6a5414714e6c70e5fa5c4781b301b590f6951b5da39c8cc60c21382ba1`
BLAKE2b-256 checksum How to use checksums	`7e6b4a7b3d20c92e6c7acedc96ef620df8e1ea8f94a26a41ab788c1c08055815`
Upload date	Aug 13, 2026
Uploaded using Trusted Publishing? What is trusted publishing?	No
Uploaded via	`twine/7.0.0 CPython/3.14.7`

Release files / sqlite_utils-4.2.1-py3-none-any.whl

Download URL	sqlite_utils-4.2.1-py3-none-any.whl
Size	99.5 kB
Tags	Python 3
SHA-256 checksum How to use checksums	`7fbaee670713b25eceba05779b844f0895efaf680d9a226fa5ba7dfe165721c5`
BLAKE2b-256 checksum How to use checksums	`ebd0a20b9ea8686ea14f171582f3ce9f9b40b8fbb858fea744896191c09f2c2f`
Upload date	Aug 13, 2026
Uploaded using Trusted Publishing? What is trusted publishing?	No
Uploaded via	`twine/7.0.0 CPython/3.14.7`