An Internal Volume is a file storage space automatically provided by the Lakehouse — no setup required, ready to use out of the box. It is ideal for scenarios where you don't have a cloud object storage account or need a place to temporarily store files.
Two Types of Internal Volumes
User Volume
Every user automatically has a dedicated private storage space for uploading local files and importing them into tables. A User Volume is private to the user — other users cannot access it.
-- Upload a local file
PUT '/local/data.csv' TO USER VOLUME;
-- List uploaded files
SHOW USER VOLUME DIRECTORY;
-- Query file contents directly (no need to import into a table first)
SELECT * FROM USER VOLUME
USING CSV OPTIONS('header' = 'true')
FILES('data.csv');
-- Import data from User Volume into a table
COPY INTO my_table
FROM USER VOLUME
USING CSV OPTIONS('header' = 'true')
FILES('data.csv');
-- Download a file to local
GET USER VOLUME FILE 'data.csv' TO '/local/output/';
-- Delete a file
REMOVE USER VOLUME FILE 'data.csv';
Table Volume
Every table is automatically associated with a dedicated storage space that exists alongside the table. A Table Volume does not store the table's live data (table data is managed internally by the system). Instead, it serves as a file storage area bound to the table, for manually exporting or importing files.
Operations on a Table Volume require the corresponding table's permissions.
-- List files in a Table Volume
SHOW TABLE VOLUME DIRECTORY my_table;
-- Example result (empty for a newly created table):
-- +---------------+-----+------+--------------------+
-- | relative_path | url | size | last_modified_time |
-- +---------------+-----+------+--------------------+
-- (empty)
-- Export table data to Table Volume (backup scenario)
COPY INTO TABLE VOLUME my_table
SUBDIRECTORY 'backup/'
FROM my_table
FILE_FORMAT = (TYPE = PARQUET);
-- List files after export
SHOW TABLE VOLUME DIRECTORY my_table;
-- Example result:
-- +---------------------------+-----+------+----------------------------+
-- | relative_path | url | size | last_modified_time |
-- +---------------------------+-----+------+----------------------------+
-- | backup/part00001.parquet | | 1296 | 2026-05-22T13:24:11.000Z |
-- +---------------------------+-----+------+----------------------------+
-- Query file contents in the Table Volume
SELECT * FROM TABLE VOLUME my_table
USING PARQUET SUBDIRECTORY 'backup/';
-- Import data from Table Volume into a table
COPY INTO my_table
FROM TABLE VOLUME my_table
USING PARQUET SUBDIRECTORY 'backup/';
⚠️ Note: SHOW VOLUME DIRECTORY my_table will produce an error (the system will attempt to find a Named Volume with that name). To list a Table Volume's contents, you must use SHOW TABLE VOLUME DIRECTORY my_table.
