Documentation

Use the influxdb3 CLI to query data

Use the influxdb3 query command to query data in InfluxDB 3 Core with SQL or InfluxQL.

Provide the following with your command:

  • Authorization token: Your InfluxDB 3 Core admin token with read permissions on the database. Provide this using one of the following:

    • --token command option
    • INFLUXDB3_AUTH_TOKEN environment variable
  • Database name: The name of the database to query. Provide this using one of the following:

    • -d, --database command option
    • INFLUXDB3_DATABASE_NAME environment variable
  • Query language (Optional): The query language of the query. Use the -l, --language option to specify one of the following query languages:

    • sql (default)
    • influxql
  • Query: SQL or InfluxQL query to execute. Provide the query in one of the following ways:

    • a string
    • the --file option and the path to a file that contains the query
    • from stdin
influxdb3 query \
  --token 
AUTH_TOKEN
\
--database
DATABASE_NAME
\
"SELECT * FROM home"
influxdb3 query \
  --token 
AUTH_TOKEN
\
--database
DATABASE_NAME
\
--file ./query.sql
cat ./query.sql | influxdb3 query --token 
AUTH_TOKEN
--database
DATABASE_NAME
influxdb3 query \
  --token 
AUTH_TOKEN
\
--language influxql \ --database
DATABASE_NAME
\
"SELECT * FROM home"
influxdb3 query \
  --token 
AUTH_TOKEN
\
--language influxql \ --file ./query.influxql
cat ./query.influxql | influxdb3 query \
  --token 
AUTH_TOKEN
\
--language influxql \ --database
DATABASE_NAME

In the examples above and below, replace the following:

  • DATABASE_NAME: Name of the database to query

Output format

The influxdb3 query command supports the following output formats:

Use the --format flag to specify the output format:

influxdb3 query \
  --token 
AUTH_TOKEN
\
--database
DATABASE_NAME
\
--format json \ "SELECT * FROM home WHERE time >= '2022-01-01T08:00:00Z' LIMIT 5"

View example pretty-formatted results

View example JSON-formatted results

View example JSON-line-formatted results

View example CSV-formatted results

Output query results to a Parquet file

To output query results to a Parquet file, provide the following options with the influxdb3 query command:

  • --format: parquet
  • -o, --output: the filepath to the Parquet file to store results in
influxdb3 query \
  --token 
AUTH_TOKEN
\
--database
DATABASE_NAME
\
--format parquet \ --output path/to/results.parquet \ "SELECT * FROM home WHERE time >= '2022-01-01T08:00:00Z' LIMIT 5"

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New in InfluxDB 3.6

Key enhancements in InfluxDB 3.6 and the InfluxDB 3 Explorer 1.4.

See the Blog Post

InfluxDB 3.6 is now available for both Core and Enterprise. This release introduces the 1.4 update to InfluxDB 3 Explorer, featuring the beta launch of Ask AI, along with new capabilities for simple startup and expanded functionality in the Processing Engine.

For more information, check out:

InfluxDB Docker latest tag changing to InfluxDB 3 Core

On February 3, 2026, the latest tag for InfluxDB Docker images will point to InfluxDB 3 Core. To avoid unexpected upgrades, use specific version tags in your Docker deployments.

If using Docker to install and run InfluxDB, the latest tag will point to InfluxDB 3 Core. To avoid unexpected upgrades, use specific version tags in your Docker deployments. For example, if using Docker to run InfluxDB v2, replace the latest version tag with a specific version tag in your Docker pull command–for example:

docker pull influxdb:2