Maybe, the [documentation from MariaDB](https://mariadb.com/kb/en/alter-table/) provides some help: ... DROP COLUMN [IF EXISTS] col_name [CASCADE|RESTRICT] Drops the column from the table. If you are using IF EXISTS you will not get an error if the column didn't exist. If the column is part of any index, the column will be dropped from them, except if you add a new column with identical name at the same time. The index will be dropped if all columns from the index were dropped. If the column was used in a view or trigger, you will get an error next time the view or trigger is accessed. MariaDB starting with 10.2.8 Dropping a column that is part of a multi-column UNIQUE constraint is not permitted. For example: CREATE TABLE a ( a int, b int, primary key (a,b) ); ALTER TABLE x DROP COLUMN a; [42000][1072] Key column 'A' doesn't exist in table The reason is that dropping column a would result in the new constraint that all values in column b be unique. In order to drop the column, an explicit DROP PRIMARY KEY and ADD PRIMARY KEY would be required. Up until MariaDB 10.2.7, the column was dropped and the additional constraint applied, resulting in the following structure: ALTER TABLE x DROP COLUMN a; Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.46 sec) DESC x; +-------+---------+------+-----+---------+-------+ | Field | Type | Null | Key | Default | Extra | +-------+---------+------+-----+---------+-------+ | b | int(11) | NO | PRI | NULL | | +-------+---------+------+-----+---------+-------+ MariaDB starting with 10.4.0 MariaDB 10.4.0 supports instant DROP COLUMN. DROP COLUMN of an indexed column would imply DROP INDEX (and in the case of a non-UNIQUE multi-column index, possibly ADD INDEX). These will not be allowed with ALGORITHM=INSTANT, but unlike before, they can be allowed with ALGORITHM=NOCOPY RESTRICT and CASCADE are allowed to make porting from other database systems easier. In MariaDB, they do nothing.