# Unable to delete documents from full index

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/unable-to-delete-documents-from-full-index/379266>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Tags:** reindex\
**Created:** [June 17, 2025, 8:48pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/unable-to-delete-documents-from-full-index/379266 "2025-06-17T20:48:32Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 4

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Tortoise](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/tortoise/32/147587_2.png) [@Tortoise](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Tortoise)\
**Post date:** [June 18, 2025, 4:02am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/unable-to-delete-documents-from-full-index/379266/4 "2025-06-18T04:02:39Z")

</div>

Hello @fgjensen

Looking at the blogs seems your version must be 7.3.2 , could you please confirm?

> [@Node crashes due to max number of docs exceeded, but ILM should've not let it happen](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/node-crashes-due-to-max-number-of-docs-exceeded-but-ilm-shouldve-not-let-it-happen/201499/3):
>
> We have been running 7.3 for a month now, and looking at ILM explain results, it is seen that the indices were getting rolled over at 50GB everytime. Even the last index, metricbeat-7.3.0-0000050 rolled over correctly from 49. The 51st rollover also worked as expected. I can't do a dry run on that index now as I had to delete it to get the nodes started. But given that previous rollovers were successful, it might not be a problem with rollover itself? After deleting the old 51 Index, I created…

I believe split API can be used as per the below link & i have tried but for smaller index :

> <https://github.com/opensearch-project/OpenSearch/issues/3104>
>
> \*\*Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.\*\*
> OpenSearch s…hards have a 2147483519 doc limit. This is driven by a \[hard Lucene limit\](https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/LUCENE-5843) on the number of documents that can exist in a Lucene index.
> 
> Once an OpenSearch shard has reached the maximum number of documents, the index begins rejecting document deletions:
> 
> \`\`\`
> GET /\_cat/indices/\<my index\>?v
> health status index uuid pri rep docs.count docs.deleted store.size pri.store.size
> green open \<my index\> ne6hnbXiQSOdpxg6zsqPgw 1 1 2147483519 0 569.2gb 284.2gb
> 
> DELETE /\<my index\>/\_doc/zpi-oH0Bo4VEviPH9aZC
> {
> "error" : {
> "root\_cause" : \[
> {
> "type" : "illegal\_argument\_exception",
> "reason" : "number of documents in the index cannot exceed 2147483519"
> }
> \],
> "type" : "illegal\_argument\_exception",
> "reason" : "number of documents in the index cannot exceed 2147483519"
> },
> "status" : 400
> }
> \`\`\`
> 
> \*\*Describe the solution you'd like\*\*
> The ability to delete some docs within the index to free up space. Not sure if there's a Lucene-level limitation that prevents this behavior. 
> 
> \*\*Describe alternatives you've considered\*\*
> N/A
> 
> \*\*Additional context\*\*
> N/A

```auto

GET kibana_logs_success/_count #14074

PUT /kibana_logs_success/_block/write

POST /kibana_logs_success/_split/kibana_sample_logs_split
{
  "settings": {
    "index.number_of_shards": 10
  }
}

GET kibana_sample_logs_split/_count

```

I used 10 primary shards you can consider a lower number :

 ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/2/1/217ff9223e6e26dbaad57f0bfb17e3fc5f3bd8e7.png)

Thanks!!

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