How do I quickly rename a MySQL database (change schema name)? The MySQL manual at MySQL covers this. Usually I just dump the database and reimport it with a new name. This is not an option for very big databases. Apparently RENAME {DATABASE | SCHEMA} db_name TO new_db_name; does bad things, exist only in a handful of versions, and is a bad idea overall. This needs to work with InnoDB, which stores things very differently than MyISAM. Answer : For InnoDB, the following seems to work: create the new