New feature
GA
Default Warehouse
Default Warehouse is a Databricks compute / bi capability, introduced August 2025.
A Databricks SQL setting that lets a workspace admin pick the SQL warehouse automatically selected in the SQL editor, AI/BI dashboards, Genie, Alerts and Catalog Explorer, which individual users can override with their own user-level default.
- Before it existed, the warehouse picker fell back to whatever you used last or plain alphabetical order - so a warehouse's name could decide which compute your ad hoc query woke up.
- Opting out is the default - leave the setting on Last selected and the workspace behaves exactly as it did before.
- Where admins pointed the default at a smaller warehouse, the share of Catalog Explorer queries landing on small warehouses rose from 77% to 96%.
- Category
- Compute / BI
- Also known as
- Default SQL warehouse, Default SQL warehouse settings, User-level default warehouse
- Verified
- 2026-09-27
Sources
- Official Official Databricks / Microsoft docs
- Official Databricks docs: Set a user-level default warehouse
- Official Databricks release notes: Default SQL warehouse settings (General Availability), February 5, 2026
- Official Databricks blog: Protect Performance and Reduce Surprise Costs with Default Warehouse (March 27, 2026)