Alter Standard Table - Overview
Last updated: February 2, 2026
Alters properties of an existing Snowflake standard table. This change supports a wide range of table modifications including renaming, swapping, clustering, data retention, change tracking, schema evolution, policies, tags, contacts, and search optimization.
Known limitations:
This change type does not support automatic rollback.
Snowflake snapshots created with Liquibase Secure 5.1 are incompatible with earlier versions due to enhanced object type detection for TABLES and VIEWS. Regenerate all snapshots with 5.1 after upgrading to avoid false differences in diff and diff-changelog operations.
Available Attributes
Attribute | Type | Description | Required |
catalogName | String | Name of the catalog (database) containing the table | No |
schemaName | String | Name of the schema containing the table | No |
tableName | String | Name of the table to alter | Yes |
ifExists | Boolean | If true, only alters if the table exists using `IF EXISTS` | No |
Available Operations
You can specify one or more of the following nested elements to perform different alter operations. Multiple operations can be combined in a single change.
Table Management
renameTo - Rename the table or move it to a different schema/catalog
swapWith- Swap the table with another table
Performance Optimization
alterClustering - Modify clustering key configuration
alterSearchOptimization - Add or drop search optimization
Data Retention
alterDataRetention - Modify data retention settings for Time Travel
Change Tracking and Evolution
alterChangeTracking- Enable or disable change data capture (CDC)
alterSchemaEvolution - Enable or disable flexible schema changes
Metadata and Governance
alterComment - Update or remove table comment
alterCollation - Modify default DDL collation
alterContacts - Add or remove contact associations
alterTags - Add or remove tag associations
Security Policies
alterRowAccessPolicy- Modify row-level security policy
alterAggregationPolicy- Modify privacy-preserving aggregation policy
alterJoinPolicy - Modify join policy
Data Metrics
alterDataMetricSchedule - Modify data metric schedule
alterDataMetricFunction - Add, modify, or drop data metric functions
Validation Rules
tableNameis required and cannot be emptyFor each alter operation, mutually exclusive options cannot be used together
Referenced objects (contacts, tags, policies) must exist before they can be associated