Updated: 28 September 2026 · Applies to: MariaDB 10.6 to 11.4 and MySQL 8
Show the databases on a MySQL/MariaDB server from the command line.
Steps
mysql -u root -p # or just "mysql" as root on cPanel servers SHOW DATABASES;
Or in one command, without opening the client:
mysql -e "SHOW DATABASES;"
More useful queries
-- size of each database in MB SELECT table_schema AS db, ROUND(SUM(data_length+index_length)/1024/1024,1) AS mb FROM information_schema.tables GROUP BY table_schema ORDER BY mb DESC; -- tables in one database SHOW TABLES FROM shopdb;
A normal user only sees the databases they have privileges on.
Ucartz services for this topic
- KVM VPS hosting: NVMe SSD and full root access, with Free Basic Managed Support.
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