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These settings are available in system.settings and are autogenerated from source.

group_by_overflow_mode

Sets what happens when the number of unique keys for aggregation exceeds the limit:
  • throw: throw an exception
  • break: stop executing the query and return the partial result
  • any: continue aggregation for the keys that got into the set, but do not add new keys to the set.
Using the ‘any’ value lets you run an approximation of GROUP BY. The quality of this approximation depends on the statistical nature of the data.

group_by_two_level_threshold

From what number of keys, a two-level aggregation starts. 0 - the threshold is not set.

group_by_two_level_threshold_bytes

From what size of the aggregation state in bytes, a two-level aggregation begins to be used. 0 - the threshold is not set. Two-level aggregation is used when at least one of the thresholds is triggered.

group_by_use_nulls

Changes the way the GROUP BY clause treats the types of aggregation keys. When the ROLLUP, CUBE, or GROUPING SETS specifiers are used, some aggregation keys may not be used to produce some result rows. Columns for these keys are filled with either default value or NULL in corresponding rows depending on this setting. Possible values:
  • 0 — The default value for the aggregation key type is used to produce missing values.
  • 1 — ClickHouse executes GROUP BY the same way as the SQL standard says. The types of aggregation keys are converted to Nullable. Columns for corresponding aggregation keys are filled with NULL for rows that didn’t use it.
See also:
Last modified on July 23, 2026