Is there a way to start from max in a primary key in PostgreSQL if I import data from another db?

Question

I have an old MSAccess DB and I want to convert it to PostgreSQL. I found DBeaver very useful. Some operations may be done by hand. This is the case of Primary Keys. You must manually set the primary keys. I didn't found another way to do it. So in PGAdmin, I'm setting all this stuff. The client is using constantly this db so I can get data only on holiday when the client is not working and import data on PostgreSQL. My goal is to set the database ready to receive data from the production database. So far, in PGAdmin, I'm setting the Primary Key identity on "Always" and starting from the last number of primary key, setting it by hand. I think this is not the right way to do it. And when I'll start to import the production data, I don't want to set by hand all that stuff. How can I set the primary key ready to start the autoincrement from max of ID?

Answer 1

Using an identity column is the good way. Just set the sequences to a value safely above the current maximum. It doesn't matter if you lose a million sequence values.