Find All Tables That Do Not Have a Given Column in Postgres

Published: Jun 15, 2020 • Updated: May 3, 2021

If you have hundreds of tables, it can be a pain to search each individual one to check if it has a given column. This query left joins all tables for a given schema, <some_schema>, against itself, then shows tables that do not have a given column, <some_column>.

SELECT
  *
FROM
  (
  SELECT
    DISTINCT table_name
  FROM
    information_schema.columns
  WHERE
    table_schema = '<some_schema>' ) a
LEFT JOIN (
  SELECT
    DISTINCT table_name
  FROM
    information_schema.columns
  WHERE
    table_schema = '<some_schema>'
    AND column_name = '<some_column>' ) b ON
  a.table_name = b.table_name
WHERE
  b.table_name IS NULL;