# Help on curator

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/help-on-curator/179953>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [May 7, 2019, 11:39am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/help-on-curator/179953 "2019-05-07T11:39:38Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 7\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Vikash\_Singh1](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/vikash_singh1/32/42119_2.png) [@Vikash\_Singh1](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Vikash_Singh1)\
**Post date:** [May 7, 2019, 11:39am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/help-on-curator/179953/1 "2019-05-07T11:39:38Z")

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I am bit confuse here!!!!!with the help of curator we actually delete the indices or we can delete the old documents from our indices????

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**Author:** ![theuntergeek](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/theuntergeek/32/44961_2.png) [@theuntergeek](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/theuntergeek)\
**Post date:** [May 7, 2019, 11:53am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/help-on-curator/179953/2 "2019-05-07T11:53:38Z")

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Curator is for _indices_ only. It will not delete documents.

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**Author:** ![Vikash\_Singh1](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/vikash_singh1/32/42119_2.png) [@Vikash\_Singh1](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Vikash_Singh1)\
**Post date:** [May 8, 2019, 4:32am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/help-on-curator/179953/3 "2019-05-08T04:32:23Z")

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Is there anyway we can delete the old documents from the indices because every time creating new indices won't be feasible

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**Author:** ![theuntergeek](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/theuntergeek/32/44961_2.png) [@theuntergeek](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/theuntergeek)\
**Post date:** [May 8, 2019, 11:32am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/help-on-curator/179953/4 "2019-05-08T11:32:19Z")

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Try the [`delete_by_query`](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/7.0/docs-delete-by-query.html) API.

If your data is time series, this is still a poor approach. You'd do better to use rollover indices and expire the old data by dropping/deleting entire indices in such a case. If it's mostly static data, then the `delete_by_query` can work for you.

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**Author:** ![Vikash\_Singh1](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/vikash_singh1/32/42119_2.png) [@Vikash\_Singh1](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Vikash_Singh1)\
**Post date:** [May 10, 2019, 4:24am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/help-on-curator/179953/5 "2019-05-10T04:24:00Z")

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Which would be more wise Curator or ILM?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![theuntergeek](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/theuntergeek/32/44961_2.png) [@theuntergeek](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/theuntergeek)\
**Post date:** [May 10, 2019, 9:59pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/help-on-curator/179953/6 "2019-05-10T21:59:42Z")

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If you have at least a Basic license, and you do not need any of the additional functionality of Curator, use ILM for sure.

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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:** [June 7, 2019, 9:59pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/help-on-curator/179953/7 "2019-06-07T21:59:44Z")

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