# Enabling/Disabling \_source field query **URL:** \ **Category:** Elasticsearch\ **Created:** [February 27, 2019, 6:00am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/enabling-disabling-source-field-query/170105 "2019-02-27T06:00:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Hari\_Prasad](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/hari_prasad/32/56784_2.png) [@Hari\_Prasad](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Hari_Prasad)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2019, 6:00am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/enabling-disabling-source-field-query/170105/1 "2019-02-27T06:00:20Z")
I have gone through the merits and problems or disabling the \_source field. But my main query is that if I disable the \_source field then what am I supposed to expect as search result query. When I tried this then all I see is the index, id, type and few other meta data fields. So why would someone disable the \_source fields when the search results itself is not available. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Prasad](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/hari_prasad/32/56784_2.png) [@Hari\_Prasad](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Hari_Prasad)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2019, 8:51am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/enabling-disabling-source-field-query/170105/2 "2019-03-05T08:51:22Z")
I tried a small experiment I created an index with a little more than 1 million docs. but i indexed the same line 1 million times `"This index has only one sentence, nothing more than that"` The size of indices with and without \_source are 39287618 and 37506437 bytes respectively. I don't see any big change in size of the indices either. So i am not very clear on why what is the advantage of disabling the source. ---
**Author:** ![dadoonet](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/dadoonet/32/137187_2.png) [@dadoonet](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/dadoonet)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2019, 9:16am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/enabling-disabling-source-field-query/170105/3 "2019-03-05T09:16:53Z")
We don't recommend disabling the source. ---
**Author:** ![dadoonet](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/dadoonet/32/137187_2.png) [@dadoonet](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/dadoonet)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2019, 9:17am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/enabling-disabling-source-field-query/170105/4 "2019-03-05T09:17:54Z")
You can disable the source and enable store for some fewer fields than the whole document. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Prasad](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/hari_prasad/32/56784_2.png) [@Hari\_Prasad](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Hari_Prasad)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2019, 9:38am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/enabling-disabling-source-field-query/170105/5 "2019-03-05T09:38:36Z")
@dadoonet So if we disable source without enabling store for any fields then can we see the results? I mean will there be anything more than meta fields in search results and will be useful at all? ---
**Author:** ![dadoonet](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/dadoonet/32/137187_2.png) [@dadoonet](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/dadoonet)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2019, 12:37pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/enabling-disabling-source-field-query/170105/6 "2019-03-05T12:37:36Z")
No you can't. > will be useful at all? It depends. Some people are storing their `_source` in a 3rd party system and prefer to do lookups in that system. So they just need to get back ids and nothing more. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2019, 12:37pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/enabling-disabling-source-field-query/170105/7 "2019-04-02T12:37:37Z")
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