# Non destructive way of clearing all indices

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/non-destructive-way-of-clearing-all-indices/275256>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [June 8, 2021, 8:35am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/non-destructive-way-of-clearing-all-indices/275256 "2021-06-08T08:35:09Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![eeijlar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/96bed5/32.png) [@eeijlar](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/eeijlar)\
**Post date:** [June 8, 2021, 8:35am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/non-destructive-way-of-clearing-all-indices/275256/1 "2021-06-08T08:35:09Z")

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I have been using:

`curl -X DELETE "https://localhost:9200/_all`

to delete all indices. I am doing this in a kubernetes ECK environment. It seems to break things though and kibana pod gets into trouble. Am I right in saying that I shouldn't delete the .kibana index?

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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:** [June 8, 2021, 8:10pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/non-destructive-way-of-clearing-all-indices/275256/2 "2021-06-08T20:10:52Z")

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> [@eeijlar](#):
>
> Am I right in saying that I shouldn't delete the .kibana index?

Ideally nothing starting with a `.` as it would be considered a system index.

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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 6, 2021, 8:11pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/non-destructive-way-of-clearing-all-indices/275256/3 "2021-07-06T20:11:34Z")

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