Delete indices

DELETE /{index}

Deleting an index deletes its documents, shards, and metadata. It does not delete related Kibana components, such as data views, visualizations, or dashboards.

You cannot delete the current write index of a data stream. To delete the index, you must roll over the data stream so a new write index is created. You can then use the delete index API to delete the previous write index.

Required authorization

Index privileges: delete_index

Path Parameters

index union IndexName | [] IndexName required: Comma-separated list of indices to delete. You cannot specify index aliases. By default, this parameter does not support wildcards (*) or _all. To use wildcards or _all, set the action.destructive_requires_name cluster setting to false.

Query Parameters

allow_no_indices boolean · default: true

A setting that does two separate checks on the index expression. If false, the request returns an error (1) if any wildcard expression (including _all and *) resolves to zero matching indices or (2) if the complete set of resolved indices, aliases or data streams is empty after all expressions are evaluated. If true, index expressions that resolve to no indices are allowed and the request returns an empty result.

expand_wildcards string ExpandWildcards · default: open,closed

Type of index that wildcard patterns can match. If the request can target data streams, this argument determines whether wildcard expressions match hidden data streams. Supports comma-separated values, such as open,hidden.

Supported values include:

all: Match any data stream or index, including hidden ones.
open: Match open, non-hidden indices. Also matches any non-hidden data stream.
closed: Match closed, non-hidden indices. Also matches any non-hidden data stream. Data streams cannot be closed.
hidden: Match hidden data streams and hidden indices. Must be combined with open, closed, or both.
none: Wildcard expressions are not accepted.

Values: all open closed hidden none

ignore_unavailable boolean · default: false

If false, the request returns an error if it targets a concrete (non-wildcarded) index, alias, or data stream that is missing, closed, or otherwise unavailable. If true, unavailable concrete targets are silently ignored.

master_timeout string Duration · default: 30s

Period to wait for a connection to the master node. If no response is received before the timeout expires, the request fails and returns an error.

timeout string Duration · default: 30s

Period to wait for a response. If no response is received before the timeout expires, the request fails and returns an error.

Response

application/json

Examples

Request Console 1 / 8 languages

Console Kibana Dev Tools

DELETE /books

JavaScript Elasticsearch JavaScript Client

const response = await client.indices.delete({
  index: "books",
});

Python Elasticsearch Python Client

resp = client.indices.delete(
    index="books",
)

curl Shell

curl -X DELETE "$ELASTICSEARCH_URL/books" \
  -H "Authorization: ApiKey $ELASTIC_API_KEY"

Java Elasticsearch Java Client

client.indices().delete(d -> d
    .index("books")
);

C# Elasticsearch .NET Client

var response = await client.Indices.DeleteAsync(indices: new[] { "books" });

PHP Elasticsearch PHP Client

$resp = $client->indices()->delete([
    "index" => "books",
]);

Ruby Elasticsearch Ruby Client

response = client.indices.delete(
  index: "books"
)

Response

No example

Required authorization

Path Parameters

Query Parameters { allow_no_indices , expand_wildcards , ignore_unavailable , master_timeout , timeout , }

Response

Query Parameters