# Deleting first n documents from index
**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/deleting-first-n-documents-from-index/11982
**Category:** Elasticsearch
**Created:** [May 15, 2013, 9:21pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/deleting-first-n-documents-from-index/11982 "2013-05-15T21:21:08Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Jim\_Flim](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Jim_Flim)
#### Post date: [May 15, 2013, 9:21pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/deleting-first-n-documents-from-index/11982/1 "2013-05-15T21:21:08Z")
Hey, this is a pretty simple question but after much searching I'm still
stumped. Basically I want to create a delete by query that deletes the
first n documents from a given index. The only thing I found relating to
restricting the size were the from/size parameters
[http://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/reference/api/search/from-size/](http://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/reference/api/search/from-size/) but as
far as I'm aware that isn't compatible with the query DSL. I also found the
_limit_ query but that only limits the documents to retrieve per shard. I'm
probably missing something really obvious but I'm completely stumped.
Any help would be greatly appreciated, Thanks
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### Author:  [@simonw\_2](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/simonw_2)
#### Post date: [May 15, 2013, 9:23pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/deleting-first-n-documents-from-index/11982/2 "2013-05-15T21:23:58Z")
Hey,
a delete by query will delete all documents that match the query not just
the top N results. How do you define the first N? are they the oldest docs
in the index? maybe you can give some details so we can help better.
simon
On Wednesday, May 15, 2013 11:21:08 PM UTC+2, Jim Flim wrote:
> Hey, this is a pretty simple question but after much searching I'm still
> stumped. Basically I want to create a delete by query that deletes the
> first n documents from a given index. The only thing I found relating to
> restricting the size were the from/size parameters
> [Elasticsearch Platform — Find real-time answers at scale | Elastic](http://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/reference/api/search/from-size/) but as
> far as I'm aware that isn't compatible with the query DSL. I also found the
> _limit_ query but that only limits the documents to retrieve per shard.
> I'm probably missing something really obvious but I'm completely stumped.
>
> Any help would be greatly appreciated, Thanks
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### Author:  [@Jim\_Flim](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Jim_Flim)
#### Post date: [May 15, 2013, 9:38pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/deleting-first-n-documents-from-index/11982/3 "2013-05-15T21:38:51Z")
Yea basically I want a query that matches all docs of an index and deletes
the oldest n documents
On May 15, 2013 5:24 PM, "simonw" [simon.willnauer@elasticsearch.com](mailto:simon.willnauer@elasticsearch.com) wrote:
> Hey,
>
> a delete by query will delete all documents that match the query not just
> the top N results. How do you define the first N? are they the oldest docs
> in the index? maybe you can give some details so we can help better.
>
> simon
>
> On Wednesday, May 15, 2013 11:21:08 PM UTC+2, Jim Flim wrote:
>
> > Hey, this is a pretty simple question but after much searching I'm still
> > stumped. Basically I want to create a delete by query that deletes the
> > first n documents from a given index. The only thing I found relating to
> > restricting the size were the from/size parameters [http://www](http://www).\*\*
> > [Elasticsearch Platform — Find real-time answers at scale | Elastic](http://elasticsearch.org/guide/ **reference/api/search/from-** size/)[http://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/reference/api/search/from-size/](http://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/reference/api/search/from-size/) but
> > as far as I'm aware that isn't compatible with the query DSL. I also found
> > the _limit_ query but that only limits the documents to retrieve per
> > shard. I'm probably missing something really obvious but I'm completely
> > stumped.
> >
> > Any help would be greatly appreciated, Thanks
>
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### Author:  [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)
#### Post date: [July 6, 2017, 2:36am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/deleting-first-n-documents-from-index/11982/4 "2017-07-06T02:36:27Z")