Get a document count

POST also GET /_cat/count/{index}
POST also GET /_cat/count

Get quick access to a document count for a data stream, an index, or an entire cluster. The document count only includes live documents, not deleted documents which have not yet been removed by the merge process.

Important

CAT APIs are only intended for human consumption using the command line or Kibana console. They are not intended for use by applications. For application consumption, use the count API.

Note

Starting in Elasticsearch 9.3.0, this endpoint also supports the POST method. This is primarily intended for project routing in serverless environments.

Required authorization

Authentication

Api key

Authorization: <value>

Elasticsearch APIs support key-based authentication. You must create an API key and use the encoded value in the request header. For example:

		curl -X GET "${ES_URL}/_cat/indices?v=true" \
  -H "Authorization: ApiKey ${API_KEY}"

To get API keys, use the /_security/api_key APIs.

Basic

Authorization: Basic <credentials>

Bearer

Authorization: Bearer <token>

Elasticsearch APIs support the use of bearer tokens in the Authorization HTTP header to authenticate with the API. For examples, refer to Token-based authentication services

Path parameters

Query parameters

h union oneOf

A comma-separated list of columns names to display. It supports simple wildcards.

Supported values include:

epoch (or t, time): The Unix epoch time in seconds since 1970-01-01 00:00:00.
timestamp (or ts, hms, hhmmss): The current time in HH:MM:SS format.
count (or dc, docs.count, docsCount): The document count in the cluster or index.

Values: epoch t time timestamp ts hms hhmmss count dc docs.count docsCount

s union oneOf

List of columns that determine how the table should be sorted. Sorting defaults to ascending and can be changed by setting :asc or :desc as a suffix to the column name.

One of: string[] or string

format string · default: text

Specifies the format to return the columnar data in, can be set to text, json, cbor, yaml, or smile.

help boolean · default: false

When set to true will output available columns. This option can't be combined with any other query string option.

v boolean · default: false

When set to true will enable verbose output.

bytes enum

Sets the units for columns that contain a byte-size value. Note that byte-size value units work in terms of powers of 1024. For instance 1kb means 1024 bytes, not 1000 bytes. If omitted, byte-size values are rendered with a suffix such as kb, mb, or gb, chosen such that the numeric value of the column is as small as possible whilst still being at least 1.0. If given, byte-size values are rendered as an integer with no suffix, representing the value of the column in the chosen unit. Values that are not an exact multiple of the chosen unit are rounded down.

Values: b kb mb gb tb pb

time enum

Sets the units for columns that contain a time duration. If omitted, time duration values are rendered with a suffix such as ms, s, m or h, chosen such that the numeric value of the column is as small as possible whilst still being at least 1.0. If given, time duration values are rendered as an integer with no suffix. Values that are not an exact multiple of the chosen unit are rounded down.

Values: nanos micros ms s m h d

Request body

Response

application/json

Examples

Request Console 1 / 7 languages

Console Kibana Dev Tools

POST /_cat/count/my-index-000001?v=true&format=json

JavaScript Elasticsearch JavaScript Client

const response = await client.cat.count({
  index: "my-index-000001",
  v: "true",
  format: "json",
});

Python Elasticsearch Python Client

resp = client.cat.count(
    index="my-index-000001",
    v=True,
    format="json",
)

curl Shell

curl -X POST "$ELASTICSEARCH_URL/_cat/count/my-index-000001?v=true&format=json" \
  -H "Authorization: ApiKey $ELASTIC_API_KEY"

Java Elasticsearch Java Client

client.cat().count(c -> c
    .index("my-index-000001")
);

PHP Elasticsearch PHP Client

$resp = $client->cat()->count([
    "index" => "my-index-000001",
    "v" => "true",
    "format" => "json",
]);

Ruby Elasticsearch Ruby Client

response = client.cat.count(
  index: "my-index-000001",
  v: "true",
  format: "json"
)

Response

A successful response from GET /_cat/count/my-index-000001?v=true&format=json. It retrieves the document count for the my-index-000001 data stream or index.

[
  {
    "epoch": "1475868259",
    "timestamp": "15:24:20",
    "count": "120"
  }
]