What is the difference between shrink database and shrink file?

What is shrinking database?

The Shrink Database task reduces the size of SQL Server database data and log files. By using the Shrink Database task, a package can shrink files for a single database or multiple databases.

Is it safe to shrink a database?

This is true that shrinking a database is not recommended. You can understand it like this when you shrink the database then it leads to increase in fragmentation now to reduce the fragmentation you try to rebuilt the index which will eventually lead to increase in your database size.

What is shrink file?

Shrinking data files recovers space by moving pages of data from the end of the file to unoccupied space closer to the front of the file. When enough free space is created at the end of the file, data pages at end of the file can be deallocated and returned to the file system.

Does shrinking a database delete data?

When you shrink a database, you are asking SQL Server to remove the unused space from your database's files. The process SQL uses can be ugly and result in Index fragmentation. This fragmentation affects performance in the long run.