# Indexing fields without storing
**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/indexing-fields-without-storing/5776
**Category:** Elasticsearch
**Created:** [November 4, 2011, 3:42pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/indexing-fields-without-storing/5776 "2011-11-04T15:42:08Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Andrej](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Andrej)
#### Post date: [November 4, 2011, 3:42pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/indexing-fields-without-storing/5776/1 "2011-11-04T15:42:08Z")
Maybe its simple or stupid, but I didnt find an answer to this
question: Is there a way to index fields, but not to store them? I
have large text fields where I just want to search for a word, but
never really return the whole field. What would be a good (meaning
memory efficient) way to do this?
Thanks in advance!
Andrej
---
### Author:  [@Jeremie\_BORDIER1](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Jeremie_BORDIER1)
#### Post date: [November 4, 2011, 3:46pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/indexing-fields-without-storing/5776/2 "2011-11-04T15:46:47Z")
On Fri, Nov 4, 2011 at 4:42 PM, Andrej Rosenheinrich
[andrej.rosenheinrich@unister.de](mailto:andrej.rosenheinrich@unister.de) wrote:
> Maybe its simple or stupid, but I didnt find an answer to this
> question: Is there a way to index fields, but not to store them? I
> have large text fields where I just want to search for a word, but
> never really return the whole field. What would be a good (meaning
> memory efficient) way to do this?
>
> Thanks in advance!
> Andrej
Hello Andrej,
Fields are never stored on their own appart from \_source. Since 0.18
it's possible to exclude fields from being stored in \_source. You can
set this setting by manually defining the mappings before indexing,
with a syntax similar to:
"mappings" : {
"mytype" : {
"\_source" : {
"excludes" : ["content"]
},
...
HTH,
Jérémie
--
Jérémie 'ahFeel' BORDIER
---
### Author:  [@Benjamin\_Deveze](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Benjamin_Deveze)
#### Post date: [November 4, 2011, 4:12pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/indexing-fields-without-storing/5776/3 "2011-11-04T16:12:58Z")
Hello Andrej,
Jérémie I think what you say is not completely right. Fields can be
configured in mapping to be stored even if by default most of core fields
have store set to no. When the value of a field is fetched, it can be
fetched from the stored value in lucene index or extracted from the stored
\_source (if \_source is enabled which is the default).
For the big text fields you want to index but don't want to retrieve you
can set "store" to "no" for these fields.
---
### Author:  [@Jeremie\_BORDIER1](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Jeremie_BORDIER1)
#### Post date: [November 4, 2011, 4:18pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/indexing-fields-without-storing/5776/4 "2011-11-04T16:18:48Z")
Hello Benjamin,
What I meant, is that fields are not stored by default 😉 Thanks for
you precision.
Jérémie
On Fri, Nov 4, 2011 at 5:12 PM, Benjamin Devèze
[benjamin.deveze@gmail.com](mailto:benjamin.deveze@gmail.com) wrote:
> Hello Andrej,
> Jérémie I think what you say is not completely right. Fields can be
> configured in mapping to be stored even if by default most of core fields
> have store set to no. When the value of a field is fetched, it can be
> fetched from the stored value in lucene index or extracted from the stored
> \_source (if \_source is enabled which is the default).
> For the big text fields you want to index but don't want to retrieve you can
> set "store" to "no" for these fields.
--
Jérémie 'ahFeel' BORDIER
---
### Author:  [@Benjamin\_Deveze](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Benjamin_Deveze)
#### Post date: [November 4, 2011, 4:32pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/indexing-fields-without-storing/5776/5 "2011-11-04T16:32:20Z")
Hey Jérémie,
no problem. And thanks for the exclude feature by the way 😉
---
### Author:  [@dean](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/dean)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2012, 3:15am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/indexing-fields-without-storing/5776/6 "2012-10-12T03:15:34Z")
How can I index fields without storing by using Java API?
---
### Author:  [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)
#### Post date: [July 6, 2017, 3:09am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/indexing-fields-without-storing/5776/7 "2017-07-06T03:09:09Z")