> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.fly.io/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Migrate a Postgres Database from Heroku

<Warning>
  **This page is archived.** Fly Postgres (unmanaged) is no longer maintained, and Fly.io Support is not able to provide support or guidance for it. We now offer [Fly.io Managed Postgres](/postgres), our fully-managed database service that handles all aspects of running production PostgreSQL databases.

  These pages are kept for reference and are not listed in the navigation. The full set is indexed on the [Fly Postgres (Unmanaged)](/unmanaged-postgres) page.
</Warning>

This guide runs you through how to migrate a database off of Heroku and onto Fly.io, but before that, let's go over some major differences between Heroku's managed Postgres offering and Fly.io's Postgres offering.

First and foremost, if you deploy your Postgres database to Fly.io you'll be responsible for monitoring, configuring, scaling, and tuning it. If you don't provision enough disk space, your database will run out of space and stop accepting write queries. If you don't put monitoring in place for your database, a customer might alert you to an issue.

Fly.io ships a set of tools that makes it easier to setup Postgres database instances, connect to their console, perform Postgres version upgrades, and create and restore snapshots of the volume where Postgres data is stored.

The good news is that if you're not comfortable managing your own Postgres database, you can still deploy a Fly app that connects to your managed Heroku Postgres database.

## Provision and deploy a Postgres app to Fly

Let's create a Postgres database on Fly.io. First we run a command to provision a database.

<CodeGroup>
  ```bash cmd theme={null}
  fly pg create --name myapp-db
  ```

  ```output output theme={null}
  ? Select Organization: Brad Gessler (personal)
  ? Select regions: San Jose, California (US) (sjc)
  ? Select configuration: Development - Single node, 1x shared CPU, 256MB RAM, 1GB disk
  Creating postgres cluster myapp-db in organization personal
  Creating app...
  Setting secrets...
  Provisioning 1 of 1 machines with image flyio/postgres-flex:15.2
  Waiting for machine to start...
  Machine 5683004b797d8e is created
  ==> Monitoring health checks
    Waiting for 5683004b797d8e to become healthy (started, 3/3)

  Postgres cluster myapp-db created
    Username:    postgres
    Password:    92u0rN52VUV2SFq
    Hostname:    myapp-db.internal
    Flycast:     fdaa:0:2e26:0:1::b6
    Proxy port:  5432
    Postgres port:  5433
    Connection string: postgres://postgres:92u0rN52VUV2SFq@myapp-db.flycast:5432

  Save your credentials in a secure place -- you won't be able to see them again!

  Connect to postgres
  Any app within the Brad Gessler organization can connect to this Postgres using the above connection string

  Now that you've set up Postgres, here's what you need to understand: https://fly.io/docs/postgres/getting-started/what-you-should-know/
  ```
</CodeGroup>

Now we have a Fly application called `myapp-db` that's running. It's important to understand that this is "just another Fly app" since we'll be passing `myapp-db` into `flyctl` for the remainder of this documentation.

## Importing your Database

<Info>
  Any new data created by your Heroku app during this database migration won't be moved over to Fly.io. Consider taking your Heroku application offline or place in read-only mode if you want to be confident that this migration will move over 100% of your Heroku data to Fly.io.
</Info>

<CodeGroup>
  ```bash cmd theme={null}
  fly pg import $HEROKU_DATABASE_URL --app myapp-db
  ```

  ```output output theme={null}
  ? Choose a region to deploy the migration machine: San Jose, California (US) (sjc)
  ? Select VM size: shared-cpu-1x - 256
  Waiting for machine 6e82946c0dd0e8 to start...
  Connecting to fdaa:0:2e26:a7b:9ad9:3148:a144:2... complete
  [info] Running pre-checks...
  [info] Source Postgres version: 14.7 (Ubuntu 14.7-1.pgdg20.04+1)
  [info] Target Postgres version: 15.2 (Debian 15.2-1.pgdg110+1)
  [info] Pre-checks completed without issue
  [info] Starting import process... (This could take a while)
  [info] Import complete!
  Waiting for machine 6e82946c0dd0e8 to stop...
  6e82946c0dd0e8 has been destroyed
  ```
</CodeGroup>

## Confirm your data has been imported correctly

Then connect to your database instance and run a few queries to see if its there.

<CodeGroup>
  ```bash cmd theme={null}
  fly pg connect -a myapp-db -d myapp
  ```

  ```output output theme={null}
  myapp=# \dt
                       List of relations
   Schema |              Name                | Type  |  Owner
  --------+----------------------------------+-------+----------
   public | [ Your tables will appear here ] | table | postgres
   public | [              ...             ] | table | postgres
   public | [ Your tables will appear here ] | table | postgres
  ```
</CodeGroup>

## Connect it to your application

Read through [the documentation on connecting to your Postgres instances](/unmanaged-postgres/connecting) to start accessing your data.