Import & Reverse Engineer PostgreSQL Schemas

Five sources, one output

PgDesigner reads schemas from five different sources and converts them into its native .pgd format. The conversion is lossless — tables, columns, indexes, foreign keys, constraints, enums, domains, sequences, views, functions, triggers, and comments are all preserved.

Reverse engineering from a live database

Pass a PostgreSQL connection string instead of a file path. PgDesigner connects to your database and introspects the full schema via pg_catalog queries:

pgdesigner convert "postgres://user:pass@localhost:5432/mydb" -o project.pgd

What gets extracted:

• Tables, columns (types, defaults, identity, nullable, storage, compression, comments)
• Indexes (btree, hash, gin, gist, brin — with INCLUDE columns)
• Foreign keys, primary keys, UNIQUE, CHECK, EXCLUDE constraints
• Enums, domains, composite types, ranges
• Sequences (with ownership)
• Views and materialized views
• Functions and triggers
• RLS policies
• Partitions (RANGE, LIST, HASH — with bounds)
• Comments on all object types

CLI

pgdesigner convert schema.pdd -o project.pgd
pgdesigner convert schema.dbs -o project.pgd
pgdesigner convert schema.dm2 -o project.pgd
pgdesigner convert schema.sql -o project.pgd
pgdesigner convert "postgres://localhost:5432/mydb" -o project.pgd

The -o flag sets the output file. Without it, PgDesigner uses the input filename with a .pgd extension.

Migrating from MicroOLAP?

MicroOLAP Database Designer for PostgreSQL hasn't been updated since July 2021. If you have .pdd project files, PgDesigner reads them natively — no intermediate steps, no data loss. Convert and open in the visual editor in seconds:

pgdesigner convert myproject.pdd -o myproject.pgd
pgdesigner myproject.pgd