# No way to delete a specific mapping/type?

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/no-way-to-delete-a-specific-mapping-type/46739>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [April 7, 2016, 8:21pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/no-way-to-delete-a-specific-mapping-type/46739 "2016-04-07T20:21:42Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![JoshMcCullough](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/joshmccullough/32/8988_2.png) [@JoshMcCullough](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/JoshMcCullough)\
**Post date:** [April 7, 2016, 8:21pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/no-way-to-delete-a-specific-mapping-type/46739/1 "2016-04-07T20:21:42Z")

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I see that DELETE /index/type/\_mapping is no longer supported. And it's recommended to delete the entire index. Curious why this is, or if there's a workaround. If a specific type changes, we don't really want to have to re-sync the entire index, including all types/mappings.

Thanks!

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**Author:** ![warkolm](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/warkolm/32/39224_2.png) [@warkolm](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/warkolm)\
**Post date:** [April 9, 2016, 7:26am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/no-way-to-delete-a-specific-mapping-type/46739/2 "2016-04-09T07:26:02Z")

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You can use the delete-by-query plugin.

Also, read [https://www.elastic.co/blog/index-vs-type](https://www.elastic.co/blog/index-vs-type)

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**Author:** ![JoshMcCullough](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/joshmccullough/32/8988_2.png) [@JoshMcCullough](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/JoshMcCullough)\
**Post date:** [April 9, 2016, 2:31pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/no-way-to-delete-a-specific-mapping-type/46739/3 "2016-04-09T14:31:07Z")

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Delete by query doesn't delete the mapping and allow me to POST an updated mapping, it only deletes the content. I believe the workaround is to use a single type per index and just drop and recreate the index to update the type.

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**Author:** ![dadoonet](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/dadoonet/32/137187_2.png) [@dadoonet](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/dadoonet)\
**Post date:** [April 9, 2016, 2:42pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/no-way-to-delete-a-specific-mapping-type/46739/4 "2016-04-09T14:42:28Z")

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You can't delete a mapping.

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**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\
**Post date:** [July 5, 2017, 11:00pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/no-way-to-delete-a-specific-mapping-type/46739/5 "2017-07-05T23:00:56Z")

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