title: How to change the collation of an existing MySQL database?
body: <p>How to change the collation of an existing MySQL database?</p>
  
  <p>This is a Drupal 8 site</p>
  
  <p>Currently my database is with collation utf8_general_ci</p>
  
  <p>Is it possible to convert an existing database with collation utf8mb4_unicode_ci?</p>
  
  <p>Is there a risk of damaging the database?</p>
  
  <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/93669.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/93669.png" alt="enter image description here"></a></p>
  
  <p><strong>EDIT</strong></p>
  
  <p>Finally the tables are in the format utf8_general_ci</p>
  
  <p>Why is it written in the "Operations" tab utf8_general_ci?</p>
  
  <p>What is the difference between utf8mb4_general_ci and utf8mb4_unicode_ci?</p>
  
  <p>Which "Collation" is currently recommended ?</p>
  
  <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/n8ijA.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/n8ijA.png" alt="enter image description here"></a></p>