# How to delete elasticsearch logs?
**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-delete-elasticsearch-logs/301666
**Category:** Elasticsearch
**Created:** [April 5, 2022, 7:51pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-delete-elasticsearch-logs/301666 "2022-04-05T19:51:26Z")
**Posts on this page:** 18
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@danielbsilva2](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/danielbsilva2)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2022, 7:51pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-delete-elasticsearch-logs/301666/1 "2022-04-05T19:51:26Z")
good afternoon folks
how do i delete my indexes in Elasticsearch?
I need to delete the logs generated in Elasticsearch from an application I have here and leave the logs from the last 3 days, I've looked here on the forum but everything I found had no effect for me.
I got to run the command
```auto
curl -XDELETE http://my-elastic:9200/elasticsearch.log
```
but it gives the following message
```auto
curl(52) Empty reply from server
```
so I don't know if I'm doing this right, since I'm also a beginner in elastic
grateful to anyone who can help
---
### Author:  [@warkolm](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/warkolm)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2022, 9:34pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-delete-elasticsearch-logs/301666/2 "2022-04-05T21:34:28Z")
Just so we're clear, you want to delete the indices that these logs are stored in?
Take a look at [cat indices API | Elasticsearch Guide [8.1] | Elastic](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/cat-indices.html), which you can use to get a list of the indices in your cluster. From there you can delete them.
---
### Author:  [@danielbsilva2](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/danielbsilva2)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2022, 10:00pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-delete-elasticsearch-logs/301666/3 "2022-04-05T22:00:58Z")
Thanks for the answer warkolm
> Just so we're clear, you want to delete the indices that these logs are stored in?
yes that's right, because the logs that elastic generates are taking up a lot of disk space and I need to delete them for that, but I'll explain better.
I have an application monitored by filebeat and generating logs in elasticsearch and I would like to exclude these logs, but not exclude the files, but only the logs
about the documentation you gave me I don't know if I understood very well but let's go
```auto
GET /_cat/indices/my-index-*?v=true&s=index
```
this command that you have as an example would be what I have to do replacing the name of my index files?
what would be the \_cat??
---
### Author:  [@warkolm](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/warkolm)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2022, 10:09pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-delete-elasticsearch-logs/301666/4 "2022-04-05T22:09:12Z")
Just run the `GET /_cat/indices?v` command in Kibana Dev tools, then post that output 🙂
---
### Author:  [@danielbsilva2](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/danielbsilva2)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2022, 10:36pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-delete-elasticsearch-logs/301666/5 "2022-04-05T22:36:26Z")
perfect warklom
I ran the command and as output I got the result below so if you can help me to interpret it so I can get to the solution that would be to exclude the logs
```auto
health status index uuid pri rep docs.count docs.deleted store.size pri.store.size
yellow open .ds-filebeat-8.1.2-2022.04.03-000001 ufsu3EJcRsSNFJ0vKJzOvg 1 1 1744 0 535.3kb 535.3kb
```
---
### Author:  [@warkolm](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/warkolm)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2022, 11:25pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-delete-elasticsearch-logs/301666/6 "2022-04-05T23:25:29Z")
Ok, if you run a `DELETE .ds-filebeat-8.1.2-2022.04.03-000001` then those logs will be gone.
---
### Author:  [@danielbsilva2](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/danielbsilva2)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2022, 12:18am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-delete-elasticsearch-logs/301666/7 "2022-04-06T00:18:27Z")
let me see if i understand
Is that just what I have to do?
if I had another application collecting data, such as auditbeat, logstash, etc... just do the search and delete them and it will be deleted from Elasticsearch?
---
### Author:  [@warkolm](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/warkolm)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2022, 12:21am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-delete-elasticsearch-logs/301666/8 "2022-04-06T00:21:14Z")
That's one way to do it, yes.
However, what version are you running?
---
### Author:  [@danielbsilva2](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/danielbsilva2)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2022, 12:23am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-delete-elasticsearch-logs/301666/9 "2022-04-06T00:23:39Z")
I understand, if it's the Elasticsearch version you're asking, it's the last released version 8.1
---
### Author:  [@warkolm](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/warkolm)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2022, 12:26am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-delete-elasticsearch-logs/301666/10 "2022-04-06T00:26:32Z")
Then Elasticsearch will automatically delete things for you, as it uses datastreams and ILM.
You can manually delete them if you want though.
---
### Author:  [@danielbsilva2](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/danielbsilva2)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2022, 12:48am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-delete-elasticsearch-logs/301666/11 "2022-04-06T00:48:44Z")
I understand, but if I want to do with it, delete the logs and keep the data always from the last 3 days, how do I do it? I need to make an automatic routine of this
---
### Author:  [@danielbsilva2](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/danielbsilva2)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2022, 1:43am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-delete-elasticsearch-logs/301666/12 "2022-04-06T01:43:26Z")
something else warkolm
did the delete command you gave me this message there?
```auto
{
"error" : {
"root_cause" : [
{
"type" : "illegal_argument_exception",
"reason" : "index [.ds-filebeat-8.1.2-2022.04.03-000001] is the write index for data stream [filebeat-8.1.2] and cannot be deleted"
}
],
"type" : "illegal_argument_exception",
"reason" : "index [.ds-filebeat-8.1.2-2022.04.03-000001] is the write index for data stream [filebeat-8.1.2] and cannot be deleted"
},
"status" : 400
}
```
---
### Author:  [@warkolm](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/warkolm)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2022, 1:46am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-delete-elasticsearch-logs/301666/13 "2022-04-06T01:46:32Z")
Ok, it's probably worth taking a step back here.
Why are you trying to delete these logs that are stored in the indices? Are you running out of space?
---
### Author:  [@danielbsilva2](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/danielbsilva2)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2022, 1:47am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-delete-elasticsearch-logs/301666/14 "2022-04-06T01:47:45Z")
that's exactly it, I have another server here that has more than 500GB occupied and I need to delete the logs and as I don't know how to do it, I asked for help here
---
### Author:  [@warkolm](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/warkolm)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2022, 1:50am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-delete-elasticsearch-logs/301666/15 "2022-04-06T01:50:23Z")
> [@danielbsilva2](#):
>
> I have another server here that has more than 500GB occupied
The disconnect for me is that when you posted the output from `_cat/indices?v`, there was only one index in the output, that was `535.3kb`. So where's the 500GB coming from? What other server?
---
### Author:  [@danielbsilva2](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/danielbsilva2)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2022, 11:02am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-delete-elasticsearch-logs/301666/16 "2022-04-06T11:02:02Z")
hello warkolm
a thousand pardons, is that the company here changed the accesses to this server that has the 500GB of logs and I'm waiting to be released and this 535.3kb is a test environment that I'm using, but on the server that has the 500GB of logs while I I had access, I did the same procedures here, guided by you and gave the same error as the one I'm in the test environment
---
### Author:  [@danielbsilva2](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/danielbsilva2)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2022, 8:02pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-delete-elasticsearch-logs/301666/17 "2022-04-06T20:02:29Z")
good afternoon warkolm
I managed to solve it after many tests here directly inside the kibana creating a policy, I had many doubts about this policy because I was not understanding the phases that are here and after a lot of studying these phases, now it became clearer and I managed to do it and it is working normally with this ILM policy enabled and everything automated the way I needed it, which is every 3 days to delete the logs and so I will always have 3-day logs which is what I need according to the attached print
anyway, thank you for all your attention and help.
---
### Author:  [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)
#### Post date: [May 4, 2022, 8:02pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-delete-elasticsearch-logs/301666/18 "2022-05-04T20:02:33Z")
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