Database Error while connecting from Localhost

So I figured this out, thanks very much for all of your help! You were right, I had installed the database via terminal and it uploaded to a different location. That's why it was not showing up in MAMP > PHPMyAdmin. I had followed a Codeigniter tutorial which imported the DB from the terminal - then ran the internal PHP sever from the terminal php -S localhost:8080. This is what was causing the database error - there was NO DATABASE! MAMP couldn't see the DB that was uploaded to the terminal location.

Also, when I tried to upload the DB into phpmyadmin it was too large, so I had to download it in two separate files from my server. Compressing both files into a zip file before uploading helped also.

It's running locally now on MAMP. Thanks again!