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databricks Platform · Updated Nov 13, 2025

Convert foreign tables to Unity Catalog managed or external tables (Public…

You can now convert foreign tables from external catalogs (such as Hive Metastore or AWS Glue) to Unity Catalog managed or external tables while retaining table history and configurations.

What it does

You can now convert foreign tables from external catalogs (such as Hive Metastore or AWS Glue) to Unity Catalog managed or external tables while retaining table history and configurations. Use ALTER TABLE SET MANAGED to convert to managed tables with MOVE (disable source access) or COPY (keep source accessible) options, or use ALTER TABLE SET EXTERNAL to convert to external tables with an optional DRY RUN validation. Additionally, you can convert entire foreign catalogs to standard Unity Catalog catalogs using ALTER CATALOG DROP CONNECTION.

Why it matters

Reduces operational overhead and unlocks new capabilities for data teams on Databricks.

Key capabilities
Delta
Delta
Parquet
Parquet
TEXT Table type: The HMS
TEXT Table type: The HMS table type must be an external HMS table. The command fails if the table is a managed HMS table.…
Architecture
Databricks Platform → Platform
In short

You can now convert foreign tables from external catalogs (such as Hive Metastore or AWS Glue) to Unity Catalog managed or external tables while retaining table history and configurations. Use ALTER TABLE SET MANAGED to convert to managed tables with MOVE…

Read the full documentation ↗
Key takeaway
You can now convert foreign tables from external catalogs (such as Hive Metastore or AWS Glue) to Unity Catalog managed or external tables while retaining table history and configurations.
2025-11-13-2f940c96 Generated by the Databricks Updates Agent · browse all updates