对于有大量表的数据库，你可以使用一个简单的php脚本来更新数据库和所有表的字符集，使用以下方法:

$conn = mysqli_connect($host, $username, $password, $database);

if ($conn->connect_error) {
  die("Connection failed: " . $conn->connect_error);
}

$alter_database_charset_sql = "ALTER DATABASE ".$database." CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci";
mysqli_query($conn, $alter_database_charset_sql);

$show_tables_result = mysqli_query($conn, "SHOW TABLES");
$tables  = mysqli_fetch_all($show_tables_result);

foreach ($tables as $index => $table) {
  $alter_table_sql = "ALTER TABLE ".$table[0]." CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8  COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci";
  $alter_table_result = mysqli_query($conn, $alter_table_sql);
  echo "<pre>";
  var_dump($alter_table_result);
  echo "</pre>";
}

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';

使用ALTER DATABASE和ALTER TABLE命令。

ALTER DATABASE databasename CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci;
ALTER TABLE tablename CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci;

或者如果你仍然使用MySQL 5.5.2或更早的版本，不支持4字节UTF-8，使用utf8而不是utf8mb4:

ALTER DATABASE databasename CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci;
ALTER TABLE tablename CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci;

对于有大量表的数据库，你可以使用一个简单的php脚本来更新数据库和所有表的字符集，使用以下方法:

$conn = mysqli_connect($host, $username, $password, $database);

if ($conn->connect_error) {
  die("Connection failed: " . $conn->connect_error);
}

$alter_database_charset_sql = "ALTER DATABASE ".$database." CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci";
mysqli_query($conn, $alter_database_charset_sql);

$show_tables_result = mysqli_query($conn, "SHOW TABLES");
$tables  = mysqli_fetch_all($show_tables_result);

foreach ($tables as $index => $table) {
  $alter_table_sql = "ALTER TABLE ".$table[0]." CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8  COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci";
  $alter_table_result = mysqli_query($conn, $alter_table_sql);
  echo "<pre>";
  var_dump($alter_table_result);
  echo "</pre>";
}

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。

DELIMITER $$  

CREATE PROCEDURE `databasename`.`update_char_set`()  

BEGIN  
 DECLARE done INT DEFAULT 0;  
 DECLARE t_sql VARCHAR(256);  
 DECLARE tableName VARCHAR(128);  
 DECLARE lists CURSOR FOR SELECT table_name FROM `information_schema`.`TABLES` WHERE table_schema = 'databasename';  
 DECLARE CONTINUE HANDLER FOR SQLSTATE '02000' SET done = 1;  
 OPEN lists;  
 FETCH lists INTO tableName;  
 REPEAT  
    SET @t_sql = CONCAT('ALTER TABLE ', tableName, ' CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci');  
    PREPARE stmt FROM @t_sql;  
    EXECUTE stmt;  
    DEALLOCATE PREPARE stmt;  
 FETCH lists INTO tableName;  
 UNTIL done END REPEAT;  
 CLOSE lists;  
END$$  

DELIMITER ;  

CALL databasename.update_char_set();