diff --git a/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/index/mapper/MapperService.java b/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/index/mapper/MapperService.java
index 241de4ad4f7..006e1264768 100644
--- a/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/index/mapper/MapperService.java
+++ b/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/index/mapper/MapperService.java
@@ -456,6 +456,9 @@ public class MapperService extends AbstractIndexComponent implements Iterable<Do
         if (types == null || types.length == 0) {
             return smartNameObjectMapper(smartName);
         }
+        if (types.length == 1 && types[0].equals("_all")) {
+            return smartNameObjectMapper(smartName);
+        }
         for (String type : types) {
             DocumentMapper possibleDocMapper = mappers.get(type);
             if (possibleDocMapper != null) {
@@ -586,6 +589,9 @@ public class MapperService extends AbstractIndexComponent implements Iterable<Do
         if (types == null || types.length == 0) {
             return smartName(smartName);
         }
+        if (types.length == 1 && types[0].equals("_all")) {
+            return smartName(smartName);
+        }
         for (String type : types) {
             DocumentMapper documentMapper = mappers.get(type);
             // we found a mapper
diff --git a/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/index/query/QueryParseContext.java b/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/index/query/QueryParseContext.java
index 6e30c4314ef..d7ee4788938 100644
--- a/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/index/query/QueryParseContext.java
+++ b/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/index/query/QueryParseContext.java
@@ -275,6 +275,9 @@ public class QueryParseContext {
         if (types == null || types.length == 0) {
             return mapperService().types();
         }
+        if (types.length == 1 && types[0].equals("_all")) {
+            return mapperService().types();
+        }
         return Arrays.asList(types);
     }