--- layout: default title: Delete document parent: Document APIs nav_order: 15 redirect_from: - /opensearch/rest-api/document-apis/delete-document/ --- # Delete document Introduced 1.0 {: .label .label-purple } If you no longer need a document in your index, you can use the delete document API operation to delete it. ## Example ``` DELETE /sample-index1/_doc/1 ``` {% include copy-curl.html %} ## Path and HTTP methods ``` DELETE /<index>/_doc/<_id> ``` ## URL parameters Parameter | Type | Description | Required :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- <index> | String | The index to delete from. | Yes <_id> | String | The ID of the document to delete. | Yes if_seq_no | Integer | Only perform the delete operation if the document's version number matches the specified number. | No if_primary_term | Integer | Only perform the delete operation if the document has the specified primary term. | No refresh | Enum | If true, OpenSearch refreshes shards to make the delete operation available to search results. Valid options are `true`, `false`, and `wait_for`, which tells OpenSearch to wait for a refresh before executing the operation. Default is `false`. | No routing | String | Value used to route the operation to a specific shard. | No timeout | Time | How long to wait for a response from the cluster. Default is `1m`. | No version | Integer | The version of the document to delete, which must match the last updated version of the document. | No version_type | Enum | Retrieves a specifically typed document. Available options are `external` (retrieve the document if the specified version number is greater than the document's current version) and `external_gte` (retrieve the document if the specified version number is greater than or equal to the document's current version). For example, to delete version 3 of a document, use `/_doc/1?version=3&version_type=external`. | No wait_for_active_shards | String | The number of active shards that must be available before OpenSearch processes the delete request. Default is 1 (only the primary shard). Set to `all` or a positive integer. Values greater than 1 require replicas. For example, if you specify a value of 3, the index must have two replicas distributed across two additional nodes for the operation to succeed. | No ## Response ```json { "_index": "sample-index1", "_id": "1", "_version": 2, "result": "deleted", "_shards": { "total": 2, "successful": 2, "failed": 0 }, "_seq_no": 1, "_primary_term": 15 } ``` ## Response body fields Field | Description :--- | :--- _index | The name of the index. _id | The document's ID. _version | The document's version. _result | The result of the delete operation. _shards | Detailed information about the cluster's shards. total | The total number of shards. successful | The number of shards OpenSearch successfully deleted the document from. failed | The number of shards OpenSearch failed to delete the document from. _seq_no | The sequence number assigned when the document was indexed. _primary_term | The primary term assigned when the document was indexed.