Manage your databases

PokerLens keeps your hands in a database — a single file on your computer. You can have several (last year's, a backup, a fresh one to start over), and exactly one is In use at a time. Everything here happens on the Databases screen.

Click Databases on the rail, under Setup. Every database PokerLens knows about is listed, wherever it's kept. Each row shows:

• where the file is,
• how many hands it holds, its size, the size of its statistics, and when it was last written,
• which folder its statistics are kept in, and how much space is free on that disk.

The database being used right now is marked In use. A .db file that isn't a PokerLens database is listed too, marked Not a book of hands, so you can see it's there.

Click Back up on its row. A copy is written next to it, named after the database and the moment you took it — for example hands-backup-2026-09-15-143205 — and appears in the list. When it's done you'll see Backed up to… with the copy's location.

Click Use on any row. PokerLens switches straight away: the HUD pauses for a moment, every screen starts reading the new database, and the HUD comes back. You'll see Now using…, and the row is marked In use. PokerLens remembers your choice the next time it starts.

Under New database, type a Name and click Create. To keep it somewhere other than the usual folder, click Choose… under Folder first. The new database is empty and ready to use — click Use on it when you want to switch.

Click Move… on its row and choose a folder. The database goes there along with its statistics. If you move the one in use, PokerLens copies it, switches to the copy and removes the old file, pausing the HUD while it does.

If only the statistics need room, click Move statistics… instead. The statistics kept beside your hands can get large with a big database, and they can live on a different disk from the hands.

Click Delete on its row. The row asks Delete …? It cannot be got back. — click Delete again to confirm, or Keep it. You can't delete the database that's in use; switch to another one first.

Your reports read statistics kept beside the hands, so they open in seconds and stay current as new hands come in. They're updated by themselves after new hands, imports and changes to a statistic, so you shouldn't normally need to do anything.

If a figure ever looks wrong, click Update statistics under Statistics. PokerLens rebuilds them from your hands and shows the progress as it goes; your reports keep using the old statistics until the new ones are ready.

When PokerLens offers a backup after an update

Sometimes a new version of PokerLens needs to change the way your database is stored. When that happens, a window titled Your database is about to change appears before anything is changed. Click Backup Database to take a copy first (recommended), or Carry on to go ahead without one.

If it doesn't work

• "Hands are being held in memory, so no database is in use." Click Use on a database, or create one, and PokerLens keeps your hands in it from then on.
• "Refused: …" The reason is given after it — for example, a name that's already taken or a file that's no longer there.
• Create is switched off. Your license allows only one database. See the warning above.

Related: Import from PokerTracker 4, Import from Hand2Note or DriveHUD.