psql: FATAL: role "postgres" does not exist

Question

I'm a postgres novice.

I installed the postgres.app for mac. I was playing around with the psql commands and I accidentally dropped the postgres database. I don't know what was in it.

I'm currently working on a tutorial: http://www.rosslaird.com/blog/building-a-project-with-mezzanine/

And I'm stuck at sudo -u postgres psql postgres

ERROR MESSAGE: psql: FATAL: role "postgres" does not exist

$ which psql

/Applications/Postgres.app/Contents/MacOS/bin/psql

This is what prints out of psql -l

                                List of databases
    Name    |   Owner    | Encoding | Collate | Ctype |     Access privileges     
------------+------------+----------+---------+-------+---------------------------
 user       | user       | UTF8     | en_US   | en_US | 
 template0  | user       | UTF8     | en_US   | en_US | =c/user                  +
            |            |          |         |       | user      =CTc/user      
 template1  | user       | UTF8     | en_US   | en_US | =c/user                  +
            |            |          |         |       | user      =CTc/user      
(3 rows)

So what are the steps I should take? Delete an everything related to psql and reinstall everything?

Restarting Computer. Ensures Launchd from brew services start postresql is executed. — Michael Dimmitt
– Michael Dimmitt, Commented Jun 26, 2017 at 12:35
Postgresapp use your computer's login username instead of postgres. You can find out what is your username by typing whoami in the terminal. Use this username to login instead. — duykhoa
– duykhoa, Commented Jul 21, 2022 at 19:16
while installing through brew it also use your computer's login username instead of postgres. so, just login by using your username at terminal or while making connection through pgAdmin4 Thanks @duykhoa — sheerazabbas
– sheerazabbas, Commented Apr 16, 2023 at 13:32
Oh, that was my problem -- I didn't realize postgres had been created with the computer name. I ran psql -l to look at databases and saw that I did have postgres, but that my name was listed as the owner. To create roles I had to open the postgres database with my computer username:: psql -U <my_name> -d postgres. Thank you, @duykhoa and @sheerazabbas, for your comments -- and also @user805981 for posting this question! — Miss Henesy
– Miss Henesy, Commented Aug 29, 2024 at 18:45
In terminal do: whoami, Find out your username, Go to PGAdmin App, Right Click the server, properties, change the username to 'your mac/computer username' and click Save Again right click to that server, hit connect server See the magic — Vipul Patel
– Vipul Patel, Commented Oct 1 at 15:02

Adam Reis · Accepted Answer · 2024-03-20 02:32:04Z

701

NOTE: If you installed postgres using homebrew, see the comments from @user3402754 and @originalhat below.

Note that the error message does NOT talk about a missing database, it talks about a missing role. Later in the login process it might also stumble over the missing database.

But the first step is to check the missing role: What is the output within psql of the command \du ? On my Ubuntu system the relevant line looks like this:

                              List of roles
 Role name |            Attributes             | Member of 
-----------+-----------------------------------+-----------
 postgres  | Superuser, Create role, Create DB | {}

If there is not at least one role with superuser, then you have a problem :-)

If there is one, you can use that to login. And looking at the output of your \l command: The permissions for user on the template0 and template1 databases are the same as on my Ubuntu system for the superuser postgres. So I think your setup simple uses user as the superuser. So you could try this command to login:

sudo -u user psql user

If user is really the DB superuser you can create another DB superuser and a private, empty database for him:

CREATE USER postgres SUPERUSER;
CREATE DATABASE postgres WITH OWNER postgres;

But since your postgres.app setup does not seem to do this, you also should not. Simple adapt the tutorial.

edited Mar 20, 2024 at 2:32

Adam Reis

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answered Mar 9, 2013 at 10:13

A.H.

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13 Comments

arcseldon Over a year ago

For me, the user was not being created - this worked instead CREATE USER postgres WITH SUPERUSER PASSWORD 'password'; am using postgres v10.

user3402754 Over a year ago

If you installed Postgres from homebrew then you need to run /usr/local/opt/postgres/bin/createuser -s postgres in your terminal

user1807782 Over a year ago

I had to run /usr/local/opt/postgresql/bin/createuser -s postgres

Digitrance Over a year ago

If you are using a specific version of postgres, then you need to include the version in the path -- /usr/local/opt/postgresql@11/bin/createuser -s postgres

originalhat Over a year ago

For M1 Macs: /opt/homebrew/bin/createuser -s postgres

|

Nitin · Accepted Answer · 2018-11-18 20:20:25Z

347

For MAC:

Install Homebrew
brew install postgres
initdb /usr/local/var/postgres
/usr/local/Cellar/postgresql/<version>/bin/createuser -s postgres or /usr/local/opt/postgres/bin/createuser -s postgres which will just use the latest version.
start postgres server manually: pg_ctl -D /usr/local/var/postgres start

To start server at startup

mkdir -p ~/Library/LaunchAgents
ln -sfv /usr/local/opt/postgresql/*.plist ~/Library/LaunchAgents
launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/homebrew.mxcl.postgresql.plist

Now, it is set up, login using psql -U postgres -h localhost or use PgAdmin for GUI.

By default user postgres will not have any login password.

Check this site for more articles like this: https://medium.com/@Nithanaroy/installing-postgres-on-mac-18f017c5d3f7

edited Nov 18, 2018 at 20:20

answered Feb 10, 2016 at 6:19

Nitin

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4 Comments

Automatico Over a year ago

With the newest brew install you can do brew services start postgresql to start postgres

varontron Over a year ago

Step 4 could be /usr/local/opt/postgresql@<version>/bin/createuser -s postgres

Stewart Over a year ago

Step 3 gives Permission denied

tuuk79 Over a year ago

i had to do this. cd /opt/homebrew/Cellar/postgresql@16/16.4/bin then run ./createuser postgres then connect using postgres as username and no password

Laurel · Accepted Answer · 2018-10-23 21:08:27Z

298

The key is "I installed the postgres.app for mac." This application sets up the local PostgreSQL installation with a database superuser whose role name is the same as your login (short) name.

When Postgres.app first starts up, it creates the $USER database, which is the default database for psql when none is specified. The default user is $USER, with no password.

Some scripts (e.g., a database backup created with pgdump on a Linux systsem) and tutorials will assume the superuser has the traditional role name of postgres.

You can make your local install look a bit more traditional and avoid these problems by doing a one time:

/Applications/Postgres.app/Contents/Versions/9.*/bin/createuser -s postgres

which will make those FATAL: role "postgres" does not exist go away.

edited Oct 23, 2018 at 21:08

Laurel

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answered Jul 23, 2013 at 14:25

jwd630

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12 Comments

Roger Lipscombe Over a year ago

If you're using postgres from Homebrew, then you want /usr/local/Cellar/postgresql/9.2.4/bin/createuser -s postgres (for version 9.2.4, obviously).

Michael Coxon Over a year ago

For postgres.app 9.3, they seem to have re-arranged the directories. I tried: /Applications/Postgres.app/Contents/Versions/9.3/bin/createuser -s postgres, but this generated the same eror message: "createuser: could not connect to database postgres: FATAL: role "postgres" does not exist"

cjspurgeon Over a year ago

/Applications/Postgres.app/Contents/Versions/9.3/bin/createuser -s postgres ran correctly for me.

AlessioX Over a year ago

@RogerLipscombe if you run brew link postgresql after the installation, there's no need to append the whole path to createuser, a simple createuser -s postgres will work great

biniam Over a year ago

createuser -s postgres worked for me. I installed postgres with Homebrew

|

Amit Meena · Accepted Answer · 2025-06-18 09:29:45Z

239

And if you are here in mid 2025 :) and wondering what works with the latest Postgres on the latest macOS (macOS 15 Sequoia) for resolving : FATAL: role "postgres" does not exist

follow this:

brew install postgresql
createuser -s postgres
brew services restart postgresql

Note: In case you are using a dockerized instance make sure to first set the variables so you can connect to that instance: export PGUSER="youruser" export PGHOST="127.0.0.1" export PGPASSWORD="yourpassword.

Thanks, @NicolasZ for the comment regarding dockerized instance.

edited Jun 18 at 9:29

answered Feb 1, 2022 at 13:46

Amit Meena

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13 Comments

Gilson Viana Over a year ago

that worked nicely running on Monterey.

Ahmet KAYGISIZ Over a year ago

Thanks!, i uninstall postgres and then i did what you say, it worked!

Jasson Rojas Over a year ago

Life saver ! it works for me (Mac M2)

solz Over a year ago

Thank you so much for this!!! This should be the top answer!

Ivotje50 May 14 at 11:44

This should be the top response..

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CesareoAguirre · Accepted Answer · 2017-08-10 20:10:51Z

97

createuser postgres --interactive

or make a superuser postgresl just with

createuser postgres -s

answered Aug 10, 2017 at 20:10

CesareoAguirre

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3 Comments

unom Over a year ago

Cool stackoverflow.com/questions/17633422/…

theusual Over a year ago

I found this answer useful when my pgadmin kept on asking for postgres user and I dint have postgres role to begin with, this command created it, I added the autogenerated pw into my pgadmin and problem solved!

Roberto Rodriguez Over a year ago

This works for me.. but this way: "create user postgres"

isapir · Accepted Answer · 2019-04-23 17:06:32Z

67

This happens when you run initdb with a user whose ID is not postgres, without specifying the postgres username with --username=postgres or -U postgres.

The database cluster is then created with the system's user account that you used to run initdb, and it is given superuser permissions.

To fix it, simply create a new user named postgres with the option --superuser using the createuser utility that comes with Postgres. The utility can be found in the Postgres' bin directory. e.g.

createuser --superuser postgres

If you have a custom hostname or port then be sure to set the appropriate options.

Don't forget to delete the other user account that was created for you by initdb.

edited Apr 23, 2019 at 17:06

answered Mar 20, 2019 at 21:11

isapir

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1 Comment

Nitin Nain Over a year ago

This is the exact explanation I was looking for! Thanks.

Steffen Moritz · Accepted Answer · 2020-08-10 19:45:02Z

48

If you installed postgres from brew, run this in your terminal :

/usr/local/opt/postgres/bin/createuser -s postgres

edited Aug 10, 2020 at 19:45

Steffen Moritz

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answered Aug 10, 2020 at 12:50

Saket Sinha

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3 Comments

Tvaroh Over a year ago

Exactly what I was looking for.

iarobinson Over a year ago

Thank you for this. This worked for me while setting up a server in pgAdmin 4.

sh6210 Over a year ago

For me the path was different /opt/homebrew/opt/postgresql@14/bin/createuser -s postgres

ruzenhack · Accepted Answer · 2017-11-15 05:46:07Z

24

First you need create a user:

sudo -u postgres createuser --superuser $USER

After you create a database:

sudo -u postgres createdb $USER

Change $USER to your system username.

You can see the the complete solution here.

edited Nov 15, 2017 at 5:46

answered Jul 29, 2015 at 22:54

ruzenhack

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1 Comment

José Mateus Over a year ago

I was receiving this error: error: connection to server on socket "/tmp/.s.PGSQL.5432" failed: FATAL: role "jose.mateus" does not exist None of the above worked for me, in case you are getting the same error as me, this option here helps

bcb · Accepted Answer · 2018-01-02 06:54:28Z

23

I needed to unset $PGUSER:

$ unset PGUSER
$ createuser -s postgres

answered Jan 2, 2018 at 6:54

bcb

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SwiftPush · Accepted Answer · 2021-05-03 12:27:55Z

18

If you installed postgres from Brew and are using an Apple Silicon (M1) mac, run this in your terminal:

/opt/homebrew/opt/postgresql/bin/createuser -s postgres

If you're using an Intel (x86) mac, run this in your terminal:

/usr/local/opt/postgres/bin/createuser -s postgres

answered May 3, 2021 at 12:27

SwiftPush

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1 Comment

StevenTsooo Over a year ago

/usr/local/opt/postgresql@14/bin/createuser -s postgres for postgres 14

Kevin Zhao · Accepted Answer · 2015-05-06 20:09:37Z

17

For me, this code worked:

/Applications/Postgres.app/Contents/Versions/9.4/bin/createuser -s postgres

it came from here: http://talk.growstuff.org/t/fatal-role-postgres-does-not-exist/216/4

answered May 6, 2015 at 20:09

Kevin Zhao

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1 Comment

olaoluwa_98 Over a year ago

Does it mean this new posgres user won't have a password?

Bruno Medeiros · Accepted Answer · 2020-07-23 09:30:30Z

10

If you're using docker, make sure you're NOT using POSTGRES_USER=something_else, as this variable is used by the standard image to know the name of the PostgreSQL admin user (default as postgres).

In my case, I was using this variable with the intent to set another user to my specific database, but it ended up of course changing the main PostgreSQL user.

answered Jul 23, 2020 at 9:30

Bruno Medeiros

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1 Comment

Noah Over a year ago

This was my problem! More specifically: I had accidentally saved my .env with Windows line-endings (CRLF) and so the postgres docker image was creating a postgres\r user instead of one called postgres.

user9347049 · Accepted Answer · 2021-05-12 16:11:54Z

10

This article helped me to solve same issue psql: FATAL: role “postgres” does not exist.

I am using mac, so I entered this command in terminal:

createuser -s postgres

And it worked for me.

edited May 12, 2021 at 16:11

answered May 12, 2021 at 16:03

user9347049

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Akshay Narang · Accepted Answer · 2023-07-09 01:27:34Z

10

My System

Machine: M2 Macbook Pro
macOS: Ventura 13.4.1
Postgres Version: 15.3 (postgres --version)
Installation Method: Homebrew

My Solution

I was able to resolve the issue by creating a postgres user via the following command. Please note your postgres location and createuser utility may vary based on your system and/or installation method:

/opt/homebrew/opt/postgresql@15/bin/createuser -s postgres

answered Jul 9, 2023 at 1:27

Akshay Narang

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Alex Levine · Accepted Answer · 2015-02-13 21:41:52Z

9

Running this on the command line should fix it

/Applications/Postgres.app/Contents/Versions/9.4/bin/createdb <Mac OSX Username Here>

answered Feb 13, 2015 at 21:41

Alex Levine

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kangkyu · Accepted Answer · 2021-07-28 01:02:27Z

9

We have a db named postgres after brew install postgresql and brew services start postgresql. So we can open psql like this by default.

psql postgres

And then we can add users with any name like this in that psql console.

CREATE USER postgres

And if we want a super user, then we can add SUPERUSER at the end.

answered Jul 28, 2021 at 1:02

kangkyu

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1 Comment

Keating Over a year ago

Good instruction. 'psql postgres' is connecting the postgres database(default) within the current user

Mba Gozpel · Accepted Answer · 2021-10-14 04:38:17Z

9

This worked for me

createuser -s postgres

note: I'm using mac catalina

answered Oct 14, 2021 at 4:38

Mba Gozpel

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Seyede Zahra Borghei · Accepted Answer · 2022-06-27 10:43:30Z

6

For m1 chips, if you have not installed postgresql package by homebrew, install it in terminal with:

brew install postgre

then create a username manually by:

/opt/homebrew/bin/createuser -s <username>

your error is probably fixed; but if you occur the error

FATAL: database "databasename" does not exist

then you have to create your database manually by:

/opt/homebrew/bin/createdb -U <username>  <databasename>

answered Jun 27, 2022 at 10:43

Seyede Zahra Borghei

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Daniel Vérité · Accepted Answer · 2013-03-08 20:53:25Z

4

Dropping the postgres database doesn't really matter. This database is initially empty and its purpose is simply for the postgres user to have a kind of "home" to connect to, should it need one.

Still you may recreate it with the SQL command CREATE DATABASE postgres;

Note that the tutorial mentioned in the question is not written with postgres.app in mind. Contrary to PostgreSQL for Unix in general, postgres.app tries to look like a normal application as opposed to a service that would be run by a dedicated postgres user having different privileges than your normal user. postgres.app is run and managed by your own account.

So instead of this command: sudo -u postgres psql -U postgres, it would be more in the spirit of postgres.app to just issue: psql, which automatically connects to a database matching your users's name, and with a db account of the same name that happens to be superuser, so it can do anything permissions-wise.

answered Mar 8, 2013 at 20:53

Daniel Vérité

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4 Comments

user805981 Over a year ago

Okay. But why do I get an error ERROR: cannot drop the currently open database when I try to delete the user db? So is it not a good practice to use this postgres.app?

Daniel Vérité Over a year ago

You cannot drop a db while connected to it. why would you want to delete it, anyway? It's here for your convenience.

user805981 Over a year ago

I just wanted to see if I could. So it's like a default database correct when I boot up my psql and postgres.app? Now what about the access privileges? I am not able to set them anymore? I see that template0 and template1 has access privileges

Craig Ringer Over a year ago

@user805981 Postgres.app is for testing and development purposes; it's a PostgreSQL package from Heroku that's designed to make it easier for Mac users developing with Ruby on Rails to test with PostgreSQL instead of the default SQLite. Rails uses tended to test with SQLite and deploy to PostgreSQL which caused all sorts of problems, so Heroku tried to make it easier to test on PostgreSQL too. Postgres.app is fine for testing, but I wouldn't consider using it for production or real data, that's just not what it's for.

Bax · Accepted Answer · 2016-03-02 00:10:20Z

4

This is the only one that fixed it for me :

createuser -s -U $USER

answered Mar 2, 2016 at 0:10

Bax

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1 Comment

Sean Dawson Over a year ago

This makes the current user a system superuser rather than just a postgres superuser. I would say this would be generally a bad idea as it circumvents the usual security policies. You should user sudo to gain temporary superuser privileges.

softwareplay · Accepted Answer · 2017-01-11 15:37:40Z

4

For what it is worth, i have ubuntu and many packages installed and it went in conflict with it.

For me the right answer was:

sudo -i -u postgres-xc
psql

answered Jan 11, 2017 at 15:37

softwareplay

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Ananda G · Accepted Answer · 2021-11-25 16:42:17Z

4

I've faced similar problem today, actually i was not sure what was the username. Here is the 2 thing, if you are under enterprise and don't have system admin access the postgres will create your enterprise username as the postgres admin username. If you install through Homebrew it will definitely happening. In that case simply run your psql service with brew and do an echo of the username

brew services start postgresql

then

echo $USER

You will see your username of the postgres user.

answered Nov 25, 2021 at 16:42

Ananda G

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1 Comment

Joshua W Over a year ago

This also worked for me on M1 Macbook... the postgres user was the username of my logged in account

zabop · Accepted Answer · 2023-02-08 10:15:53Z

4

On Mac, executing

createuser -s postgres

in a terminal worked.

answered Feb 8, 2023 at 10:15

zabop

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Jchy · Accepted Answer · 2023-04-01 13:04:18Z

4

Go to your terminal. Make sure that you're out of the postgres shell and your postgresql is running in the terminal. Now run the following command in your terminal :

createuser -s postgres

answered Apr 1, 2023 at 13:04

community wiki

Jchy

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Zlatan Omerovic · Accepted Answer · 2022-01-05 21:03:54Z

3

With a new mac (M1) and latest postgres (14.0) installed via homebrew, nothing helped me from this topic, but i just reinstalled postgres and it helped:

brew services stop postgresql
rm -rf /opt/homebrew/var/postgres/*
brew reinstall postgresql
initdb --locale=C -E UTF-8 /opt/homebrew/var/postgres
brew services restart postgresql

So, it's a miracle or something like that...

Then just:

psql -d postgres

edited Jan 5, 2022 at 21:03

Zlatan Omerovic

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answered Nov 5, 2021 at 8:37

stefanitsky

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2 Comments

stefanitsky Over a year ago

Btw, i installed postgres earlier, but not used about 2 weeks, may be it was a bug or something else and it was fixed, i have no idea, but it works

Dimitri Kopriwa Over a year ago

You should not use that as you will install a random version of postgresql (most likely latest available on brew)

Fed · Accepted Answer · 2023-01-08 18:42:43Z

3

Context

I am adding an answer for a case I have not seen here, which is an edge case if you have multiple users on the same machine and the user who is trying to use postgres services is not the user who installed postgres on the machine.

What I have tried

Among other similar commands, for me all these commands failed:

createuser -s [your username]
# createuser: error: connection to server on socket "/tmp/.s.PGSQL.5432" failed: FATAL:  role "[your username]" does not exist

createuser -s postgres
# createuser: error: connection to server on socket "/tmp/.s.PGSQL.5432" failed: FATAL:  role "[your username]" does not exist

sudo -u postgres createuser --superuser [your username]
# sudo: unknown user: postgres
# sudo: error initializing audit plugin sudoers_audit

psql -U postgres
# psql: error: connection to server on socket "/tmp/.s.PGSQL.5432" failed: FATAL:  role "postgres" does not exist

Reason

The reason is because neither postgres role nor [your username] (aka whoami on your command line) are in postgres.

Solution

In such edge case I had to first login with the user who installed postgres:

sudo su - [username that installed postgres]

And then create a role for my new user:

createuser -s [your username]

answered Jan 8, 2023 at 18:42

Fed

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1 Comment

Fed Over a year ago

it is amazing how my Stackoverflow answer comes in handy to myself exactly one year later and boom!

palamunder · Accepted Answer · 2021-10-27 07:16:12Z

2

If you are experiencing this problem right after running a docker container try destroying the container and recreating it. That solved it for me:

docker-compose down
docker-compose up --force-recreate

This should recreate the db with postgresuser as default user

answered Oct 27, 2021 at 7:16

palamunder

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Nitesh Rawat · Accepted Answer · 2022-05-02 06:56:37Z

2

For m1 chips and homebrew version 3.4.9, the createuser is moved inside Cellar of the particular package. This worked for me /opt/homebrew/Cellar/postgresql@12/12.10_1/bin/createuser -s postgres

answered May 2, 2022 at 6:56

Nitesh Rawat

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Amar Bisht · Accepted Answer · 2022-12-14 06:02:48Z

2

If you are a MAC (M1) user and installed the Postgres using HomeBrew then follow these steps:

Check your Postgres location using which psql
then run the command /opt/homebrew/bin/createuser -s postgres if the output for the first command is /opt/homebrew/bin/psql

The idea is to create a user named 'postgres' using the Postgres installation location. So you may need to change the command based on the location of your Postgres.

answered Dec 14, 2022 at 6:02

Amar Bisht

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Jonas Braga · Accepted Answer · 2023-08-31 18:33:48Z

2

In my case I only needed to create that user in the database I was restoring:

CREATE ROLE postgres;
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON DATABASE database_name TO postgres;

answered Aug 31, 2023 at 18:33

Jonas Braga

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