# Setup Visual Studio Code for Snowflake | Learn Snowflake

> This is content from just-tim, the data-and-analytics channel by Tim Ngwena (formerly 'Tableau Tim'). Tim has 12+ years of hands-on BI experience and covers Tableau most of all, plus Power BI, Looker, Hex, SQL and data modelling, the analytics industry, and the craft of doing the job — always tool-agnostic and honest about the trade-offs.

- **Author:** Tim Ngwena (just-tim, https://just-tim.com/about)
- **Published:** 2022-11-18
- **Format:** Video · 10 min watch · transcript available
- **Topics:** Data engineering, Analytics
- **Tools:** Snowflake (warehouses); SQL
- **Canonical:** https://just-tim.com/posts/setup-visual-studio-code-for-snowflake-learn-snowflake
- **Watch:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1WUBG5ird4

I show you how to set up Snowflake inside Visual Studio Code, starting with installing the SQL Tools extension and the Snowflake driver. I then walk through configuring a connection, getting the account identifier right, testing it, and running SQL queries against a Snowflake database.

## Key takeaways

- You need to install the SQL Tools extension first, as it's the engine the Snowflake driver relies on to use VS Code as a database client
- The Snowflake account identifier is your account ID plus region, obtained by stripping everything from .snowflakecomputing.com onwards and from the start of your login URL
- A connection requires a name, account identifier, username, password, database and warehouse, and you can verify it with the Test Connection button before saving
- SQL Tools stores connection settings as JSON, and you should check where this is kept since credentials may be stored as plain text
- The SQL Tools view only loads the first 50 rows, and a session history pane lets you retrieve and re-run any previous queries

## Chapters

- 0:22 Installing the SQL Tools extension
- 1:17 Adding the Snowflake driver
- 2:04 Configuring the connection
- 2:15 Account identifier and credentials
- 3:21 Testing and saving the connection
- 4:37 Running SQL queries
- 5:44 Results, console and query history

Watch the full video, read the transcript and use chapter deep-links on the page: https://just-tim.com/posts/setup-visual-studio-code-for-snowflake-learn-snowflake

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just-tim — Data and analytics, with a point of view. · https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7HYxRWmaNlJux-X7rNLZyw · https://twitter.com/TableauTim · https://www.linkedin.com/in/timngwena