In PostgreSQL, we can use the IF EXISTS clause of the DROP TABLE statement to check whether the table exists or not before dropping it.

Example

Here’s an example to demonstrate:

DROP TABLE IF EXISTS t1;

That statement drops a table called t1 if it exists.

When I ran that statement in Azure Data Studio (with its Postgres extension), the table already existed, and so it was dropped and I got the following message:

Commands completed successfully

When I ran the statement again (after it had already been dropped), I got the following message:

NOTICE:  table "t1" does not exist, skipping
Commands completed successfully

No error occurred, but I did get a “notice” that the table doesn’t exist, along with a message that the command completed successfully.

Here’s what happens when we don’t use IF EXISTS:

DROP TABLE t1;

Result:

table "t1" does not exist

This time we get an error telling us that the table doesn’t exist.

Also see 5 Ways to Check if a Table Exists in PostgreSQL if you just want to check whether or not a table exists without dropping it.