# Mechanisms behind async\_search

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/mechanisms-behind-async-search/255254>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [November 12, 2020, 8:11pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/mechanisms-behind-async-search/255254 "2020-11-12T20:11:12Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![alexpanas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b782af/32.png) [@alexpanas](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/alexpanas)\
**Post date:** [November 12, 2020, 8:11pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/mechanisms-behind-async-search/255254/1 "2020-11-12T20:11:13Z")

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Hello,

Could you please elaborate more about the mechanisms behind the current implementation of async search in Elasticsearch 7.8?  
As far as I can see - in our environment the .async\_search index has grew up to 40 Gb of total storage:

```auto
curl -s -XGET localhost:9200/_cat/indices/.async-search?v
health status index uuid pri rep docs.count docs.deleted store.size pri.store.size
green open .async-search XI7AfidQSKuyzQrKKW7FtQ 1 1 40436 8495 46gb 21.3gb

```

And contains a number of deleted documents.

```auto
        "docs" : {
          "count" : 80679,
          "deleted" : 25540
        },

```

Is there a way (without resorting to searches against mentioned index) to get a list of currently stored results for async searches?

How long those results are supposed to be stored in mentioned index? Is there a way for us to change the storage time?

How often old results are being deleted from mentioned index? Is there a way to configure the frequency of this cleanup?

How often mentioned index is supposed to be force merged (as I am a bit concerned in regards to the current size of the index - and also - about the number of deleted documents listed in the stats)? Is this frequency configurable? Is it safe to force merge this index manually to free up the space?

Best regards,  
Alex

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\
**Post date:** [December 10, 2020, 8:11pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/mechanisms-behind-async-search/255254/2 "2020-12-10T20:11:14Z")

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