Query Console overview
The Query Console lets you explore any backup snapshot with SQL, right in your browser. It looks and feels like a modern database client — schema sidebar, smart autocomplete, tabs, charts, CSV export — but it runs entirely on your snapshots, so your live Salesforce org is never touched: no API usage, no performance impact, no risk.
[SCREENSHOT REQUIRED: Query Console with schema sidebar, SQL editor, and results grid]
What people use it for
- Investigations — "which records changed before the incident?", "list everything owned by this user".
- Cross-object analysis — JOIN objects freely, something SOQL makes hard.
- Data audits — profile a column, count by category, find outliers.
- Recovery prep — identify exactly which records to restore before launching a restore.
- File retrieval — find and download a single file out of a snapshot without restoring anything.
Why SQL and not SOQL?
Snapshots are plain tables, so the console speaks standard SQL (SQLite dialect): unrestricted JOINs, GROUP BY, window functions, subqueries. If you know SOQL, SQL will feel familiar — and the built-in AI query bar can write the SQL for you from a plain-language request.
The essentials
- Queries run against one snapshot at a time — you pick the backup and the run when you open the console.
- Snapshots must be prepared before interactive querying — a one-time warm-up per snapshot. See Preparing snapshots.
- Queries are read-only explorations: nothing you run in the console modifies the snapshot or your org.
- Results stay in your browser; save useful queries to your library, personally or shared with your team.