depesz

PostgreSQL 19 adds non-text output formats (custom, directory, tar) to pg_dumpall. Previously limited to plain SQL text output, pg_dumpall now creates a directory structure containing a global TOC file (toc.glo), a database OID-to-name mapping file (map.dat), and per-database custom-format dump files. This enables selective restoration of individual databases and sets the stage for parallel restore via pg_restore. Benchmarks show the plain text dump of a ~70GB dataset takes ~104s, while the new custom format takes ~760s but produces compressed, individually restorable per-database archives. Parallel dump jobs (--jobs) are not yet supported but expected in a future release.

Waiting for PostgreSQL 19 – Add non-text output formats to pg_dumpall – select * from depesz;