# How to retrieve xpack watch\_id
**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-retrieve-xpack-watch-id/162888
**Category:** Elasticsearch
**Created:** [January 4, 2019, 3:35am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-retrieve-xpack-watch-id/162888 "2019-01-04T03:35:05Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@thinkdffrnt](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/thinkdffrnt)
#### Post date: [January 4, 2019, 3:35am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-retrieve-xpack-watch-id/162888/1 "2019-01-04T03:35:05Z")
Currently I replaced all data nodes and my cluster is red. There are unassigned shards in .watches index which I'm unable to delete.
Based on this documentation I need to add watch\_id in delete query
[https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/watcher-api-delete-watch.html](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/watcher-api-delete-watch.html)
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### Author:  [@spinscale](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/spinscale)
#### Post date: [January 11, 2019, 3:29pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-retrieve-xpack-watch-id/162888/2 "2019-01-11T15:29:43Z")
the delete watch API allows you to delete single watches.
However in this case the index that stores the watches is not available at all. Either you bring back a node which contained that index, or, if you are good with losing all of your data in that index you could delete (and potentially restore via a snapshot).
Hope this helps.
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### Author:  [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)
#### Post date: [February 8, 2019, 3:29pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-retrieve-xpack-watch-id/162888/3 "2019-02-08T15:29:51Z")
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