How to move columns in a MySQL table?

Question

If empName is a VARCHAR(50) column:

ALTER TABLE Employees MODIFY COLUMN empName VARCHAR(50) AFTER department;

EDIT

Per the comments, you can also do this:

ALTER TABLE Employees CHANGE COLUMN empName empName VARCHAR(50) AFTER department;

Note that the repetition of empName is deliberate. You have to tell MySQL that you want to keep the same column name.

You should be aware that both syntax versions are specific to MySQL. They won't work, for example, in PostgreSQL or many other DBMSs.

Another edit: As pointed out by @Luis Rossi in a comment, you need to completely specify the altered column definition just before the AFTER modifier. The above examples just have VARCHAR(50), but if you need other characteristics (such as NOT NULL or a default value) you need to include those as well. Consult the docs on ALTER TABLE for more info.

Change column position:

ALTER TABLE Employees 
   CHANGE empName empName VARCHAR(50) NOT NULL AFTER department;

If you need to move it to the first position you have to use term FIRST at the end of ALTER TABLE CHANGE [COLUMN] query:

ALTER TABLE UserOrder 
   CHANGE order_id order_id INT(11) NOT NULL FIRST;

phpMyAdmin provides a GUI for this within the structure view of a table. Check to select the column you want to move and click the change action at the bottom of the column list. You can then change all of the column properties and you'll find the 'move column' function at the far right of the screen.

Of course this is all just building the queries in the perfectly good top answer but GUI fans might appreciate the alternative.

my phpMyAdmin version is 4.1.7

I had to run this for a column introduced in the later stages of a product, on 10+ tables. So wrote this quick untidy script to generate the alter command for all 'relevant' tables.

SET @NeighboringColumn = '<YOUR COLUMN SHOULD COME AFTER THIS COLUMN>';

SELECT CONCAT("ALTER TABLE `",t.TABLE_NAME,"` CHANGE COLUMN `",COLUMN_NAME,"` 
`",COLUMN_NAME,"` ", c.DATA_TYPE, CASE WHEN c.CHARACTER_MAXIMUM_LENGTH IS NOT 
NULL THEN CONCAT("(", c.CHARACTER_MAXIMUM_LENGTH, ")") ELSE "" END ,"  AFTER 
`",@NeighboringColumn,"`;")
FROM information_schema.COLUMNS c, information_schema.TABLES t
WHERE c.TABLE_SCHEMA = '<YOUR SCHEMA NAME>'
AND c.COLUMN_NAME = '<COLUMN TO MOVE>'
AND c.TABLE_SCHEMA = t.TABLE_SCHEMA
AND c.TABLE_NAME = t.TABLE_NAME
AND t.TABLE_TYPE = 'BASE TABLE'
AND @NeighboringColumn IN (SELECT COLUMN_NAME 
    FROM information_schema.COLUMNS c2 
    WHERE c2.TABLE_NAME = t.TABLE_NAME);