List Empty Tables in SQL Server

I was recently doing a clean up of my website database. I remember creating some tables on my database but never adding any new rows to it.

Here’s a simple query to list all empty tables in your SQL Server database that uses a Dynamic Management View called dm_db_partition_stats which returns page and row-count information for every partition in the current database.

;WITH EmptyRows AS
(
   SELECT SUM(row_count) AS [TotalRows],
          OBJECT_NAME(OBJECT_ID) AS TableName
   FROM sys.dm_db_partition_stats
   WHERE index_id = 0 OR index_id = 1
   GROUP BY OBJECT_ID
)
SELECT * FROM EmptyRows
WHERE [TotalRows] = 0

OUTPUT
  


Note that the results from the view is only approximate. If there are any active transactions that are inserting or deleting rows, the count may not include it.

About The Author

Suprotim Agarwal, MCSD, MCAD, MCDBA, MCSE, is the founder of DotNetCurry, DNC Magazine for Developers, SQLServerCurry and DevCurry. He has also authored a couple of books 51 Recipes using jQuery with ASP.NET Controls and a new one recently at The Absolutely Awesome jQuery CookBook.

Suprotim has received the prestigous Microsoft MVP award for nine times in a row now. In a professional capacity, he is the CEO of A2Z Knowledge Visuals Pvt Ltd, a digital group that represents premium web sites and digital publications comprising of Professional web, windows, mobile and cloud developers, technical managers, and architects.

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