I’ve had to take a SQL Server database offline several times lately, and I keep forgetting the names of the commands I need to use, so I’m saving them here for future use.

To take the database offline:

To put the database back online:

Sometimes taking the database offline will fail, because there are existing connections to the database. You can find those existing connections with sp_who():

By searching for your database in the dbname column.

Then, assuming you have permission to kill those connections, you can use spid from the same row to do so:

Once all those connections are gone, you should be able to take the database offline.