How To Install SQLite On Windows 11

Windows 11 Compatibility Explained

SQLite is a small and self-contained database engine. Unlike SQL Server, Oracle, and other large databases, SQLite does not run any server and backend processes and services. All data and the data objects are stored in a single file that can be accessed directly by any application by using its full path. The file is stored on the file system as any other file.

SQLite is a serverless and zero-configuration database. That means you don’t need or run a server of the database engine and it does not require any configuration except to set up a path in the configurations.

SQLite is written in C language and accessed as a file from the file system. SQLite can run on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X.

Installing SQLite is easy. All you need to do is download the zip files and unzip them into a folder. Follow these steps to install the SQLite database on Windows.

Step 1. Create a folder, SQLite, on your C:\ or other drive when you want your SQLite files to be downloaded and copied.

In my case, I am going to create a folder, “C:\sqllite” and download the file in this folder.

Step 2. Download SQLLite

Go to the SQLite download page here.

Find Precompiled Binaries from the Windows section and download Win64 or Win32 libraries.

Step 3. Download sqlite-dll-win64.. or sqllite-dll-win32.. depending on your Windows 32 or Windows 64. Also, download sqllite-tools-win32-x86-… zip files in your folder.

Step 4. Unzip the above files in your folder. Make sure you unzip them in the root of the folder. If they are unzipped in a subfolder, move them to the root folder.

You should see the following 5 files in the folder.

As you can see from the above list of files, there are 3 exes – sqldiff.exe, sqlite3.exe, and sqlite3_analyzer.exe.

That’s all. SQLite is now ready to use.

Step 5. Double-click on sqlite3.exe to run the database from the command prompt.

Type “.help” and hit ENTER on the command prompt to load help instructions.

Step 6. For the last step, you probably want to add this path to the PATH environment variable on your machine so you can execute it from the command prompt.

Go to System > About > Advanced Settings > Path Variable and add a new Variable to the Path environment variable.

Summary

In this article, we learned how to install SQLite on a Windows 10 or Windows 11 machine.