Make a backup! Then you need to set the default char sets on the database. This does not convert existing tables, it only sets the default for newly created tables. ALTER DATABASE dbname CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci; Then, you will need to convert the char set on all existing tables and their columns. This assumes that your current data is actually in the current char set. If your columns are set to one char set but your data is really stored in another then you will need to check the MySQL manual on how to handle this. ALTER TABLE tbl_name CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci;

要更改数据库本身的字符集编码为UTF-8，在mysql>提示符处键入以下命令。将DBNAME替换为数据库名称。

ALTER DATABASE DBNAME CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci;

使用HeidiSQL。它是免费的，而且是一个非常好的数据库工具。

从工具菜单，进入批量表编辑器

选择完整的数据库或选择表进行转换，

tick更改默认排序规则:utf8mb4_general_ci tick转换为字符集:utf8

执行

这将在短短几秒钟内将完整的数据库从拉丁语转换为utf8。

工作就像一个魅力:)

HeidiSQL默认连接为utf8，因此任何特殊字符现在都应该被视为字符(æ ø å)，而不是在检查表数据时被编码。

从latin到utf8的真正陷阱是确保pdo与utf8字符集连接。如果不是，你会得到垃圾数据插入到utf8表和问号在你的网页上到处都是，让你认为表数据不是utf8…

utf8到utf8mb4:

1.显示所有数据库默认字符集:

SELECT SCHEMA_NAME 'YOUR_DATABASE_NAME', 
default_character_set_name 'charset', 
DEFAULT_COLLATION_NAME 'collation' 
FROM information_schema.SCHEMATA;

2.显示所有表的状态(字符集)，关注列的“collation”:

use YOUR_DATABASE_NAME;    
SHOW TABLE STATUS ;

3.生成转换sql: 转换数据库和所有表utf8mb4,utf8mb4_unicode_ci

USE information_schema;
SELECT CONCAT("ALTER DATABASE `",table_schema,"` CHARACTER SET = utf8mb4 COLLATE = utf8mb4_unicode_ci;") AS _sql
FROM `TABLES` WHERE table_schema LIKE "YOUR_DATABASE_NAME" AND TABLE_TYPE='BASE TABLE' GROUP BY table_schema UNION
SELECT CONCAT("ALTER TABLE `",table_schema,"`.`",table_name,"` CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci;") AS _sql  
FROM `TABLES` WHERE table_schema LIKE "YOUR_DATABASE_NAME" AND TABLE_TYPE='BASE TABLE' GROUP BY table_schema, TABLE_NAME 
/*include all columns, commonly don't need this.*/
/*
UNION
SELECT CONCAT("ALTER TABLE `",`COLUMNS`.table_schema,"`.`",`COLUMNS`.table_name, "` CHANGE `",column_name,"` `",column_name,"` ",data_type,"(",character_maximum_length,") CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci",IF(is_nullable="YES"," NULL"," NOT NULL"),";") AS _sql 
FROM `COLUMNS` INNER JOIN `TABLES` ON `TABLES`.table_name = `COLUMNS`.table_name WHERE `COLUMNS`.table_schema like "YOUR_DATABASE_NAME" and data_type in ('varchar','char') AND TABLE_TYPE='BASE TABLE' UNION
SELECT CONCAT("ALTER TABLE `",`COLUMNS`.table_schema,"`.`",`COLUMNS`.table_name, "` CHANGE `",column_name,"` `",column_name,"` ",data_type," CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci",IF(is_nullable="YES"," NULL"," NOT NULL"),";") AS _sql 
FROM `COLUMNS` INNER JOIN `TABLES` ON `TABLES`.table_name = `COLUMNS`.table_name WHERE `COLUMNS`.table_schema like "YOUR_DATABASE_NAME" and data_type in ('text','tinytext','mediumtext','longtext') AND TABLE_TYPE='BASE TABLE';
*/

4.运行生成的SQL语句。

5.刷新数据库。

6.检查:

SHOW TABLE STATUS ;

如果数据不在相同的字符集中，您可以考虑http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/charset-conversion.html中的这个片段

如果列具有非二进制数据类型(CHAR、VARCHAR、TEXT)，则其 内容应该在列字符集中编码，而不是其他字符集 字符集。如果内容用不同的字符编码 设置后，您可以先将列转换为使用二进制数据类型，然后 然后转换到具有所需字符集的非二进制列。

这里有一个例子:

 ALTER TABLE t1 CHANGE c1 c1 BLOB;
 ALTER TABLE t1 CHANGE c1 c1 VARCHAR(100) CHARACTER SET utf8;

确保选择正确的排序规则，否则可能会得到唯一的键冲突。如。 Éleanore和Eleanore在某些排序中可能被认为是相同的。

旁白:

我曾遇到过这样的情况，电子邮件中的某些字符“坏了”，尽管它们在数据库中以UTF-8格式存储。如果您使用utf8数据发送电子邮件，您可能还需要将电子邮件转换为utf8发送。

在phpailer中，只需更新这一行:public $CharSet = 'utf-8';

你可以创建sql来更新所有的表:

SELECT CONCAT("ALTER TABLE ",TABLE_SCHEMA,".",TABLE_NAME," CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci;   ",
    "ALTER TABLE ",TABLE_SCHEMA,".",TABLE_NAME," CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci;  ") 
    AS alter_sql
FROM information_schema.TABLES
WHERE TABLE_SCHEMA = "your_database_name";

捕获输出并运行它。

阿诺德•丹尼尔斯(Arnold Daniels)的回答更为优雅。