Delete a document #

Delete a specific document from the specified collection by specifying its unique identifier.

Examples #

Delete the document 0,0 from collection my-collection:

DELETE /my-collection/_doc/0,0

The API returns the following result:

{
  "_id": "0,0",
  "_version": 0,
  "result": "deleted",
  ...
}

Deleting a document again (or fetching it after deletion) answers 404 with "result": "not_found" — the delete itself still succeeds and reports "result": "deleted" only for a document that was live.

Key mappings survive deletion: creating a new document with the key of a deleted document succeeds (result: "created") and reuses that document’s original _id, instead of allocating a new one.

Request #

DELETE /<target>/_doc/<doc_id>

Path parameters #

• <target>
  (Required, string) Name of the collection to target.
• <doc_id>
  (Required, string) Unique identifier for the document, support both _key or _id.

Query parameters #

• routing
  (Required for a key-addressed delete on a routed collection) — the routing VALUE that places the document (hash(<value>) — or its salted partition set, see salting). A bare key has no home partition there and answers 400.