Favorites

Mark tables as favorites and save frequently used queries with optional keyword shortcuts

The query you retype every Monday is worth saving once. Give it the keyword dau, and from then on typing dau in the editor expands the whole statement, with the cursor already where you need to fill something in.

The Favorites tab in the sidebar holds two sections, Tables for pinned tables and Queries for saved SQL, plus a Team Library on a Team license and any folders of .sql files you have linked.

Table favorites

Hover a table row in the sidebar and a star appears at the end of it. Click the star to pin the table; a filled yellow star marks one that is already pinned, so it stays visible without hovering. Favorites move to the top of their section and appear under Tables in the Favorites tab.

Double-click a favorite there to open the table. Its right-click menu has Open Table, Show ER Diagram, and Remove from Favorites.

Favorites are scoped to the connection, database, and schema, and sync through iCloud. One whose table does not exist in the database you are viewing is hidden rather than shown broken.

Recent tables

Turn on Settings > General > Sidebar > Show recent tables for a Recent section at the top of the sidebar. It records the last 10 tables you opened per connection and database, most recent first; arrowing through preview tabs does not count. Click a row to reopen the table, or right-click to remove one entry or clear the list. Recents stay device-local and survive relaunches.

Saving a query

From	How
The editor toolbar	Click the star above the editor, or press Cmd+D
Selected SQL	Right-click > Save as Favorite
Query history	Right-click an entry > Save as Favorite
The sidebar	+ in the Favorites tab, then New Favorite…

Give it a name, the SQL, and optionally a keyword and a scope. The + menu also carries New Query, New Folder, and Add Linked SQL Folder…

Creating a new SQL favorite

A new favorite belongs to the connection you created it in. Select Global in the dialog to make it available in all connections, which is what you want for anything that does not name objects only one database has. Deleting a connection deletes the favorites scoped to it.

Keywords

A keyword is a shorthand you type in the editor. Type its first letters, case does not matter, and it appears in the completion popup as a starred entry with the favorite’s name; Tab or Return inserts the full SQL. Keywords must be unique inside their scope.

Keyword expansion in the editor autocomplete

Typing a keyword in Open Quickly finds the same query without touching the sidebar.

Cursor placement

Put ;; in the SQL to say where the cursor lands after expansion. The marker is removed on insert:

SELECT COUNT(*)
FROM orders
WHERE orders.;;

Accepting that keyword leaves the cursor right after orders., ready for a column name. Only the first ;; counts; without one the cursor lands at the end.

Working with saved queries

Double-click a favorite, or select it and press Return, to insert it into the editor. That is the default; Run in New Tab on the right-click menu runs it instead, and the same menu has Copy Query, Edit…, Move to for filing it in a folder, and Delete. Arrow keys move between rows, typing jumps to a name, and Delete removes the selection.

Create folders from the + menu, rename or delete them by right-clicking, and rename in place on the row. Dragging a saved query or a linked file out of the sidebar drops its SQL into the editor or another app.

Team Library

On a Team license the Favorites tab gains a Team Library section holding queries your team shared. Double-click one, or select it and press Return, to run it in a new tab. To share yours, click + > Publish Saved Queries to Team… See Team Plan.

Linked SQL folders

Link a folder of .sql files on disk and they appear in the Favorites sidebar next to your saved queries. The point is a Git repo of shared queries: clone it, link it, and the team’s queries stay one click away and current with git pull.

This is not Linked Folders, which watches a folder of shared .tablepro connection files.

Click + in the Favorites sidebar and choose Add Linked SQL Folder… Pick any folder; .sql, .psql, and .pgsql files are indexed, subfolders nest the way they do on disk, and hidden files are skipped. Folders are global, so every connection’s Favorites tab shows them, and a large repo is fine: only the first 4 KB of each file is read to build the sidebar.

Editing files

Click a linked file to open it as an ordinary editor tab. Cmd+S writes back in the file’s original encoding, detected on load from UTF-8, UTF-16, ISO Latin-1, and a few others.

A file changed on disk after you opened it, by a git pull or a merge, shows a yellow banner above the editor with Reload from Disk. Save anyway and a side-by-side diff sheet offers Keep My Changes, Reload from Disk, and Cancel. Files added and removed outside TablePro reach the sidebar a second or two later on their own.

A non-UTF-8 file carries a yellow warning triangle in the sidebar. Saving keeps its encoding, and a character that does not fit, an emoji into ISO Latin-1, fails the save with an error rather than losing the character quietly.

Frontmatter

Leading SQL comments set the display name, the keyword, and the tooltip:

-- @name: Active Users (24h)
-- @keyword: dau
-- @description: Daily active users from the last 24 hours
SELECT user_id, last_seen
FROM users
WHERE last_seen > NOW() - INTERVAL 24 HOUR;

Key	Effect
@name	Display name in the sidebar. Falls back to the filename without its extension.
@keyword	Autocomplete trigger, exactly as for a saved favorite.
@description	Shown in tooltips. Optional.

The parser stops at the first line that is not frontmatter, so these go at the very top; a UTF-8 BOM is handled. A file without frontmatter still appears, under its filename and with no keyword. The ;; cursor marker works in linked files too.

To change frontmatter without opening the file, right-click the row and choose Edit Metadata… The dialog rewrites the leading comment block only and keeps the rest of the file and its encoding.

Managing linked files

Press Delete on a linked file, or right-click > Move File to Trash: it goes to the macOS Trash and stays recoverable. Right-click a folder’s root row for Disable, Reload, Copy Path, Show in Finder, Add Another SQL Folder…, and Remove from Sidebar. Removing unlinks the folder; the files stay where they are.

Linked folder paths are the one part of Favorites that does not sync, so each Mac links its own copy of a shared repo.