List of non-empty tables in MySQL database

Question

'information_schema' should be holding the relevant details. You can try

SELECT table_type,
       table_name
FROM information_schema.tables
WHERE table_rows >= 1;

to select from a selective database. You can also filter by TABLE_SCHEMA:

SELECT table_schema,
       table_type,
       table_name 
FROM information_schema.tables
WHERE table_rows >= 1
  AND TABLE_SCHEMA=?

The accepted answer never worked for me, information_schema table_rows have some very weird values.

This worked like a charm:

SHOW TABLE STATUS WHERE Rows > 0;

Docs for SHOW TABLE STATUS

Use database 'information_schema' and run

SELECT * FROM `TABLES` WHERE `TABLE_ROWS` > 0 

this will give you all non-empty tables in the server for a certain database run

SELECT * FROM `TABLES` WHERE `TABLE_ROWS` > 0  AND `TABLE_SCHEMA` = 'database_name'