SQLite: How to create an empty SQLite database

Join the AI Workshop to learn more about AI and how it can be applied to web development. Next cohort February 1st, 2026

The AI-first Web Development BOOTCAMP cohort starts February 24th, 2026. 10 weeks of intensive training and hands-on projects.


I was looking for how to create an SQLite database to use with Prisma, when I found you can initialize an empty SQLite database just by creating an empty file.

I was overcomplicating it, but with SQLite initializing a new database is very very simple

For example you can use touch from the command line to create a SQLite database named storage.db:

$ touch storage.db

The same approach can be taken when duplicating a database with all its tables, or backing it up. You just copy the file.

Lessons in this unit:

0: Introduction
1: How to install SQLite on macOS
2: SQLite User Permissions
3: ▶︎ How to create an empty SQLite database