settings.sql

On this page

Settings: DuckDB runtime configuration

Phase: Pre-catalog | Order: 1 | Required: No

Controls how DuckDB executes queries: memory usage, parallelism, and disk spill behavior.

SET memory_limit = '8GB';
SET threads = 4;
SET temp_directory = '/tmp/duckdb';
SET TimeZone = 'Europe/Stockholm';

Settings

SettingDefaultDescription
memory_limit80% of system RAMMaximum memory for the runtime
threadsAll available coresNumber of parallel execution threads
temp_directory.tmpDisk spill location when memory is exceeded
TimeZoneSystem timezoneTimestamp interpretation

For the full list, see the DuckDB configuration reference.