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Retrieving your SQL LocalDB Instance Name: A How-To Guide

2019-05-21 1 min read Blog
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This article is just a note for something I forget the most: my LocalDB instance names.

Sometimes when I open SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) I lose time thinking and trying to figure out what is the name of my LocalDb.

The solution is simple: open the terminal and run SQLLocalDb.exe i, where i stands for information.

Now you can see the list of configured DBs.

SQLLocalDb.exe i result

To use it in SSMS remember to use Windows Authentication.

If you need more info about a specific instance, just run SQLLocalDB.exe i "InstanceName" where of course InstanceName must be replaced with the real name you are looking for.

This command displays some info about the specified SQL instance: this info includes the version, the owner and the current state.

SQL instance details

If you want to have a list of all available commands, run SQLLocalDB.exe -?. These commands allow you to create and delete SQL instances, stop and start existing instances and so on.

SQLLocalDB command options

It’s important to remember that here the spaces are treated as delimiters, so if your DB includes spaces inside its name, you must surround the name with quotes.

This article first appeared on Code4IT

About the author

Davide Bellone is a Principal Backend Developer with more than 10 years of professional experience with Microsoft platforms and frameworks.

He loves learning new things and sharing these learnings with others: that’s why he writes on this blog and is involved as speaker at tech conferences.

He's a Microsoft MVP 🏆, conference speaker (here's his Sessionize Profile) and content creator on LinkedIn.