# Can I delete the source index that's been split into a new one?

**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/can-i-delete-the-source-index-thats-been-split-into-a-new-one/262740
**Category:** Elasticsearch
**Created:** [January 31, 2021, 7:02am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/can-i-delete-the-source-index-thats-been-split-into-a-new-one/262740 "2021-01-31T07:02:09Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![rojin](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/rojin/32/97697_2.png) [@rojin](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/rojin)
#### Post date: [January 31, 2021, 7:02am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/can-i-delete-the-source-index-thats-been-split-into-a-new-one/262740/1 "2021-01-31T07:02:09Z")

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Hello everyone! I have an index which has been split into a target index with more shards. Can I delete the source index now? Will there be any problems? I'd appreciate if anyone could explain this to me. Thanks in advance!

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### Author: ![HenningAndersen](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/henningandersen/32/48188_2.png) [@HenningAndersen](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/HenningAndersen)
#### Post date: [January 31, 2021, 5:22pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/can-i-delete-the-source-index-thats-been-split-into-a-new-one/262740/2 "2021-01-31T17:22:20Z")

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Hi @rojin,

the normal way to handle this is to have an alias pointing to the index. Once the split has completed, you can update the alias to point to the the new index. Afterwards, it is safe to delete the original index (though long running queries may fail then).

However, this does require that all indexing and search happen through that alias and not directly against the index.

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### Author: ![rojin](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/rojin/32/97697_2.png) [@rojin](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/rojin)
#### Post date: [February 2, 2021, 4:35am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/can-i-delete-the-source-index-thats-been-split-into-a-new-one/262740/3 "2021-02-02T04:35:27Z")

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Thank you for the explanation!

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### Author: ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)
#### Post date: [March 2, 2021, 4:36am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/can-i-delete-the-source-index-thats-been-split-into-a-new-one/262740/4 "2021-03-02T04:36:12Z")

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