Logging in to Snowflake

You can log in to Snowflake in many ways.

If you’re getting started with Snowflake, start by using Snowsight or SnowSQL, the command line client that you can download. After you get comfortable using Snowflake, you can explore connecting to Snowflake with other methods.

Your Snowflake account identifier

All access to Snowflake is through your account identifier. See Account identifiers for details.

Signing in using Snowsight

You can access Snowsight over the internet or through private connectivity to the Snowflake service:

For more information about the tasks you can perform in Snowsight, refer to Snowsight quick tour.

Using the internet

To access Snowsight over the public Internet, do the following:

  1. In a supported web browser, navigate to https://app.snowflake.cn.

  2. Provide your account identifier or account URL. If you’ve previously signed in to Snowsight, you might see an account name that you can select.

  3. Sign in using your Snowflake account credentials.

You can also access Snowsight from the Classic Console:

  1. Sign in to the Classic Console.

  2. In the navigation menu, select Snowsight Snowsight.

    Snowsight opens in a new tab.

Using private connectivity

After completing the configuration to use private connectivity, access Snowsight:

  • To sign in to Snowsight with private connectivity directly, without having been logged in to the Classic Console previously:

    1. Enter either of the following URLs in the browser location bar:

      • https://app-orgname-account_name.privatelink.snowflakecomputing.cn

      • https://app.cloud_region_id.privatelink.snowflakecomputing.cn

      Where:

      • orgname is the name of your Snowflake organization.

      • account_name is the unique name of your account within your organization.

      • cloud_region_id is the identifier for the cloud region (controlled by the cloud platform).

      After signing in, you can find these details in the account selector in Snowsight.

      For details, see Locate your Snowflake account information in Snowsight and Format 1 (preferred): Account name in your organization.

      Note

      If you are unsure of the values to enter, please contact your internal Snowflake administrator before contacting Snowflake Support.

    2. Enter your Snowflake credentials.

  • Starting from the Classic Console, to sign in to Snowsight using private connectivity to the Snowflake service:

    1. Sign in to the Classic Console.

    2. In the upper-right corner of the Classic Console, select Snowsight Snowsight.

      Snowsight opens in a new tab or window.

Logging in using SnowSQL

SnowSQL is the command line client for connecting to Snowflake to execute SQL queries and perform all DDL and DML operations, including loading data into and unloading data out of database tables.

Step 1: Download and install SnowSQL

You can download the SnowSQL installer from the SnowSQL Download (https://developers.snowflake.com/snowsql/) page. No authentication is required. This version of the SnowSQL installer enables auto-upgrade for patches.

For more detailed instructions, see Installing SnowSQL.

Configuring the Z shell alias (macOS only)

If Z shell (also known as zsh) is your default terminal shell, set an alias to the SnowSQL executable so that you can run SnowSQL on the command line in Terminal. The SnowSQL installer installs the executable in /Applications/SnowSQL.app/Contents/MacOS/snowsql and appends this path to the PATH or alias entry in ~/.profile. Because zsh does not normally read this file, add an alias to this path in ~/.zshrc, which zsh does read.

To add an alias to the SnowSQL executable:

  1. Open (or create, if missing) the ~/.zshrc file.

  2. Add the following line:

    alias snowsql=/Applications/SnowSQL.app/Contents/MacOS/snowsql
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  3. Save the file.

Step 2: Connect to Snowflake and initiate a session

  1. From a terminal window, start SnowSQL from the command prompt using the following command:

    $ snowsql -a <account_identifier>
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    Where <account_identifier> is your account identifier. Note that when you specify your account identifier, do not include the snowflakecomputing.cn domain name.

    You can further streamline login by specifying the -u option followed by your user login name:

    $ snowsql -a <account_identifier> -u <user_login_name>
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  2. When prompted, enter your login name (if you didn’t provide it when executing SnowSQL) and your password.

If you specified a valid account identifier, user login name, and password, the SnowSQL prompt appears.

Tip

For security reasons, you cannot specify your password as an option on the command line; you must wait for SnowSQL to prompt you for your password.

However, if you would like to skip entering information on the command line or you need to automate login, you can provide all the required account and user credential information, as well as additional Snowflake default usage information, as options in the SnowSQL config file.

For more detailed installation, configuration, login, and usage information, see SnowSQL (CLI client).

Connecting using other methods

In addition to the Snowflake web interface and SnowSQL, Snowflake supports numerous other methods for connecting, including:

  • Using 3rd-party client services and applications that support JDBC or ODBC.

  • Developing applications that connect through the Snowflake connectors/drivers for Python, Node.js, Spark, etc.

However, connecting to Snowflake using these other methods requires additional installation, configuration, and development tasks. For more information, see Applications and tools for connecting to Snowflake.

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