Summary of data loading features¶

This topic provides a quick-reference of the supported features for using the COPY INTO <table> command to load data from files into Snowflake tables.

Data file details¶

The following table describes the general details for the files used to load data:

Feature	Supported	Notes
Location of files	Local environment	Files are first copied (“staged”) to an internal (Snowflake) stage, then loaded into a table.
	Amazon S3	Files can be loaded directly from any user-supplied bucket.
	Google Cloud Storage	Files can be loaded directly from any user-supplied bucket.
	Microsoft Azure cloud storage Blob storage Data Lake Storage Gen2 General-purpose v1 General-purpose v2	Files can be loaded directly from any user-supplied container.
File formats	Delimited files (CSV, TSV, etc.)	Any valid delimiter is supported; default is comma (i.e. CSV).
	Semi-structured formats JSON Avro ORC Parquet XML (supported as a preview feature)
	Unstructured formats
File encoding	File format-specific	For delimited files (CSV, TSV, etc.), the default character set is UTF-8. To use any other characters sets, you must explicitly specify the encoding to use for loading. For the list of supported character sets, see Supported Character Sets for Delimited Files (in this topic).
		For semi-structured file formats (JSON, Avro, etc.), the only supported character set is UTF-8.
		Snowflake doesn’t support loading data from tar (tape archive) files.

Supported character sets for delimited files¶

The following table lists the encoding character sets supported for loading data from delimited files (CSV, TSV, etc.):

Character Set	`ENCODING` Value	Supported Languages	Notes
Big5	`BIG5`	Traditional Chinese
EUC-JP	`EUCJP`	Japanese
EUC-KR	`EUCKR`	Korean
GB18030	`GB18030`	Chinese
IBM420	`IBM420`	Arabic
IBM424	`IBM424`	Hebrew
IBM949	`IBM949`	Korean
ISO-2022-CN	`ISO2022CN`	Simplified Chinese
ISO-2022-JP	`ISO2022JP`	Japanese
ISO-2022-KR	`ISO2022KR`	Korean
ISO-8859-1	`ISO88591`	Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Swedish
ISO-8859-2	`ISO88592`	Czech, Hungarian, Polish, Romanian
ISO-8859-5	`ISO88595`	Russian
ISO-8859-6	`ISO88596`	Arabic
ISO-8859-7	`ISO88597`	Greek
ISO-8859-8	`ISO88598`	Hebrew
ISO-8859-9	`ISO88599`	Turkish
ISO-8859-15	`ISO885915`	Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Swedish	Identical to ISO-8859-1 except for 8 characters, including the Euro currency symbol.
KOI8-R	`KOI8R`	Russian
Shift_JIS	`SHIFTJIS`	Japanese
UTF-8	`UTF8`	All languages	For loading data from delimited files (CSV, TSV, etc.), UTF-8 is the default. . . For loading data from all other supported file formats (JSON, Avro, etc.), as well as unloading data, UTF-8 is the only supported character set.
UTF-16	`UTF16`	All languages
UTF-16BE	`UTF16BE`	All languages
UTF-16LE	`UTF16LE`	All languages
UTF-32	`UTF32`	All languages
UTF-32BE	`UTF32BE`	All languages
UTF-32LE	`UTF32LE`	All languages
windows-874	`WINDOWS874`	Thai
windows-949	`WINDOWS949`	Korean
windows-1250	`WINDOWS1250`	Czech, Hungarian, Polish, Romanian
windows-1251	`WINDOWS1251`	Russian
windows-1252	`WINDOWS1252`	Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Swedish
windows-1253	`WINDOWS1253`	Greek
windows-1254	`WINDOWS1254`	Turkish
windows-1255	`WINDOWS1255`	Hebrew
windows-1256	`WINDOWS1256`	Arabic

Compression of staged files¶

The following table describes how Snowflake handles compression of data files for loading. The options are different depending on whether the files are staged, uncompressed, or already-compressed:

Feature	Supported	Notes
Uncompressed files	gzip	When staging uncompressed files in a Snowflake stage, the files are automatically compressed using gzip, unless compression is explicitly disabled.
Already-compressed files	gzip bzip2 deflate raw_deflate Brotli Zstandard	Snowflake can automatically detect any of these compression methods, or you can explicitly specify the method that was used to compress the files. Auto-detection isn’t supported for Brotli-compressed files; when staging or loading Brotli-compressed files, you must explicitly specify the compression method that was used. Snowflake doesn’t support uploading compressed tar (tape archive) files.

Feature

Supported

Notes

Uncompressed files

gzip

When staging uncompressed files in a Snowflake stage, the files are automatically compressed using gzip, unless compression is explicitly disabled.

Already-compressed files

gzip
bzip2
deflate
raw_deflate
Brotli
Zstandard

Snowflake can automatically detect any of these compression methods, or you can explicitly specify the method that was used to compress the files.

Auto-detection isn’t supported for Brotli-compressed files; when staging or loading Brotli-compressed files, you must explicitly specify the compression method that was used.

Snowflake doesn’t support uploading compressed tar (tape archive) files.

Encryption of staged files¶

The following table describes how Snowflake handles encryption of data files for loading. The options are different depending on whether the files are staged unencrypted or already-encrypted:

Feature	Supported	Notes
Unencrypted files	128-bit or 256-bit keys	All files stored on internal stages for data loading and unloading operations are automatically encrypted using AES-256 strong encryption on the server side. By default, Snowflake provides additional client-side encryption with a 128-bit key (with the option to configure a 256-bit key).
Already-encrypted files	User-supplied key	Files that are already encrypted can be loaded into Snowflake from external cloud storage; the key used to encrypt the files must be provided to Snowflake.