# Kibana still showing documents after a successful \`delete\_by\_query\` **URL:** \ **Category:** Kibana\ **Created:** [April 30, 2018, 9:51pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/kibana-still-showing-documents-after-a-successful-delete-by-query/130070 "2018-04-30T21:51:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![vopsec](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/5f9b8f/32.png) [@vopsec](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/vopsec)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2018, 9:51pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/kibana-still-showing-documents-after-a-successful-delete-by-query/130070/1 "2018-04-30T21:51:18Z")
I've successfully used a `delete_by_query` query on an index I'm trying to clear but Kibana is still showing the data and I can continue to interact with it. ![Capture](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/7/a/7a45ce529ce6c4f6788be089fa721472c373b66b.PNG) ![Capture](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/8/d/8d90d348d4d31f914dce36c98d7c30ed1b0090e9.PNG) I've tried doing an `only_expunge_deletes` query: `curl -u elastic: -H'Content-Type: application/json' -XPOST 'localhost:9200/_forcemerge?only_expunge_deletes=true'` but that didn't clear the data from Kibana either. Does anyone have any recommendations or ideas about how to get the data off of the server entirely and have Kibana reflect this? Thank you in advance! ---
**Author:** ![rashmi](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/rashmi/32/16391_2.png) [@rashmi](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/rashmi)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2018, 12:58am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/kibana-still-showing-documents-after-a-successful-delete-by-query/130070/2 "2018-05-01T00:58:26Z")
If you don't care about all the data in Elasticsearch, then you can delete everything: curl -XDELETE ELASTICSEARCHIP:9200/\* will delete **EVERYTHING.** Cheers Rashmi ---
**Author:** ![vopsec](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/5f9b8f/32.png) [@vopsec](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/vopsec)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2018, 9:19pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/kibana-still-showing-documents-after-a-successful-delete-by-query/130070/3 "2018-05-01T21:19:19Z")
I tried that before. I'd like to keep the indexes and the mappings so I don't want to delete everything entirely. Thanks for the idea though! ---
**Author:** ![rashmi](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/rashmi/32/16391_2.png) [@rashmi](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/rashmi)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2018, 11:53pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/kibana-still-showing-documents-after-a-successful-delete-by-query/130070/4 "2018-05-01T23:53:08Z")
hmm, may be you are having lots of documents and its taking time? it's a lot of docs, maybe it's processing in the background can you try `?refresh=wait_for` [https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/docs-refresh.html](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/docs-refresh.html) Cheers Rashmi ---
**Author:** ![vopsec](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/5f9b8f/32.png) [@vopsec](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/vopsec)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2018, 10:59am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/kibana-still-showing-documents-after-a-successful-delete-by-query/130070/5 "2018-05-03T10:59:17Z")
It has been several days and the data still exists in the Kibana GUI. Hmm... ---
**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2018, 10:59am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/kibana-still-showing-documents-after-a-successful-delete-by-query/130070/6 "2018-05-31T10:59:19Z")
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