Drop or delete a table in MySQL

To remove a table from a MySQL database, and remove all of its data, use the following SQL command.

The command will conditionally delete a table if it exists. The ‘if exists’ syntax is optional, but is useful when using SQL commands in a file, such as when importing data, as it will not display errors.

drop table if exists recipes;

The command can be issued from any SQL source including an application with database connectivity (i.e., PHP, Java, etc.) or directly from mysql command (see Connect to a MySQL server using the mysql command for more information).