# CloudTrail Lake queries
<a name="cloudtrail-lake-queries"></a>

**Note**  
AWS CloudTrail Lake will no longer be open to new customers starting May 31, 2026. If you would like to use CloudTrail Lake, sign up prior to that date. Existing customers can continue to use the service as normal. For more information, see [CloudTrail Lake availability change](cloudtrail-lake-service-availability-change.md).

Queries in CloudTrail Lake are authored in SQL. You can build a query on the CloudTrail Lake **Editor** tab by writing the query in SQL from scratch, by opening a saved or sample query and editing it, or by using the query generator to produce a query from an English language prompt. You cannot overwrite an included sample query with your changes, but you can save it as a new query. For more information about the SQL query language that is allowed, see [CloudTrail Lake SQL constraints](query-limitations.md).

An unbounded query (such as `SELECT * FROM edsID`) scans all data in your event data store. To help control costs, we recommend that you constrain queries by adding starting and ending `eventTime` time stamps to queries. The following is an example that searches for all events in a specified event data store where the event time is after (`>`) January 5, 2023 at 1:51 p.m. and before (`<`) January 19, 2023 at 1:51 p.m. Because an event data store has a minimum retention period of seven days, the minimum time span between starting and ending `eventTime` values is also seven days.

```
SELECT *
FROM eds-ID
WHERE
     eventtime >='2023-01-05 13:51:00' and eventtime < ='2023-01-19 13:51:00'
```

For information about how to optimize your queries, see [Optimize CloudTrail Lake queries](lake-queries-optimization.md).

**Topics**
+ [Query editor tools](#query-editor-format-controls)
+ [Create CloudTrail Lake queries from natural language prompts](lake-query-generator.md)
+ [View sample queries with the CloudTrail console](lake-console-queries.md)
+ [Create or edit a query with the CloudTrail console](query-create-edit-query.md)
+ [Run a query and save query results with the console](query-run-query.md)
+ [View query results with the console](query-results.md)
+ [Summarize query results in natural language](query-results-summary.md)
+ [Download saved query results](view-download-cloudtrail-lake-query-results.md)
+ [Validate CloudTrail Lake saved query results](cloudtrail-query-results-validation.md)
+ [Optimize CloudTrail Lake queries](lake-queries-optimization.md)
+ [Run and manage CloudTrail Lake queries with the AWS CLI](lake-queries-cli.md)

## Query editor tools
<a name="query-editor-format-controls"></a>

A toolbar at the upper right of the query editor offers commands to help author and format your SQL query.

![\[Query editor toolbar\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/awscloudtrail/latest/userguide/images/query-editor-toolbar.png)


The following list describes the commands on the toolbar.
+ **Undo** – Reverts the last content change made in the query editor.
+ **Redo** – Repeats the last content change made in the query editor.
+ **Format selected** – Arranges the query editor content according to SQL formatting and spacing conventions.
+ **Comment/uncomment selected** - Comments the selected portion of the query if it is not already commented. If the selected portion is already commented, choosing this option removes the comment.