Re: Best practice for granting folder read/write permission on Windows

On Fri, Feb 13, 2026 at 4:15 PM Anthony DeBarros <anthonymdebarros@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Hi, all,
>
> I don’t use Windows much, but I often help folks who do and are learning
> SQL by running PostgreSQL on that OS.
>
> In order to COPY FROM or TO a folder on, say, the Desktop, the user must
> first provide permission to PostgreSQL to Read and Write from it. Out of
> the box, it cannot as it does not have permission.
>
> Do any of you with PostgreSQL and Windows expertise have a suggestion on a
> best practice for this? I have through trial and error found that
> navigating to the folder Properties, and then Security, and adding “Users”
> to the list of Group or user names solves the issue. I suppose I could find
> the specific name of the PostgreSQL service and add it, but that’s a lot of
> digging for newbies.
>

I think the standard solution is to use psql and its \copy meta-command.
Since it runs in the client context, no special permissions are required.

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