# Force delete snapshot
**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/force-delete-snapshot/84211
**Category:** Elasticsearch
**Created:** [May 2, 2017, 7:21am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/force-delete-snapshot/84211 "2017-05-02T07:21:05Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@dwjvaughan](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/dwjvaughan)
#### Post date: [May 2, 2017, 7:21am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/force-delete-snapshot/84211/1 "2017-05-02T07:21:05Z")
My snapshot repo has filled up and I don't seem to be able to force delete any old snapshots.
When I try to delete an old snapshot, I get this:
```
{
"error": {
"root_cause": [
{
"type": "repository_exception",
"reason": "[tmp] failed to update snapshot in repository"
}
],
"type": "repository_exception",
"reason": "[tmp] failed to update snapshot in repository",
"caused_by": {
"type": "file_system_exception",
"reason": "/elasticsearch/backups/tmp/pending-index-8371-7Pcd70vUSk2d8wsvLAfzfg: No space left on device"
}
},
"status": 500
}
```
I know I could go into the FS and delete the files, which I've done in the past - but I'd imagine there must be some way to force a delete from the API
EDIT: Version 5.2.0, 5 nodes, all data on running on CentOS 7 - using an NFS share as the repo.
---
### Author:  [@warkolm](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/warkolm)
#### Post date: [May 2, 2017, 10:44am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/force-delete-snapshot/84211/2 "2017-05-02T10:44:23Z")
What is the request you are issuing?
---
### Author:  [@dwjvaughan](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/dwjvaughan)
#### Post date: [May 2, 2017, 10:45am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/force-delete-snapshot/84211/3 "2017-05-02T10:45:38Z")
`delete _snapshot/tmp/my-old-snapshot`
---
### Author:  [@warkolm](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/warkolm)
#### Post date: [May 2, 2017, 11:00am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/force-delete-snapshot/84211/4 "2017-05-02T11:00:46Z")
Where are you issuing that from, it doesn't look valid.
---
### Author:  [@dwjvaughan](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/dwjvaughan)
#### Post date: [May 2, 2017, 11:03am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/force-delete-snapshot/84211/5 "2017-05-02T11:03:41Z")
Sense. I tried curl too, but obviously that would be slightly different:
`curl -XDELETE "localhost:9200/_snapshot/tmp/my-old-snapshot?pretty"`
---
### Author:  [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)
#### Post date: [May 30, 2017, 11:08am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/force-delete-snapshot/84211/6 "2017-05-30T11:08:53Z")
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