I'm trying to understand if predicate pushdown is supported when using the DESCRIBE HISTORY command

[saicharandeepb]

I'm trying to understand if predicate pushdown is supported when using the DESCRIBE HISTORY command on a Delta table in Databricks.

[Yogesh_378691 · Accepted solution]

`DESCRIBE HISTORY` on a Delta table in Databricks does **not support predicate pushdown** in the same way as regular SQL queries on data tables.

This is because `DESCRIBE HISTORY` is a **metadata operation** that reads the Delta log files to return table version history. While you can apply filters like:

```sql
SELECT * FROM (DESCRIBE HISTORY delta.`/path/to/table`) WHERE userName = 'xyz'
```

the filter is applied **after** the metadata is retrieved — not during the log scanning. So there’s **no performance gain** from the filter in terms of pushdown.

If you're dealing with a large number of table versions, it's better to use:

```sql
DESCRIBE HISTORY delta.`/path/to/table` LIMIT 10;
```

to limit how much history is read.